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EARNEST MINISTRY 



WANT OF THE TIMES. 

BY / 

JOHN AXGELL JAMES. 

WITH AS 

INTRODUCTION. 

BY 

Kev. JONATHAN B. CONDIT, D.D., 

Professor of Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Theology in Aueurn 
Theological Seminary. N. Y, 




PHILADELPHIA: 
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

No. 821 Chestnut Street. 






> 






NOTICE. 



This work was republished a number of years 
ago in the city of New York, and had at that time an 
extensive circulation. But it gradually disappeared 
from the market, and for some years has been out of 
print or not procurable, although often inquired for. 

A generous friend of the Board of Publication re- 
cently found an opportunity to purchase the stereo- 
type plates, which he did wholly at his own cost, and 
presented them to the Board, which is thus enabled, 
advantageously to the Church and to itself, to repro- 
duce this valuable book. 

There are some references in the volume to per- 
sons and to local circumstances peculiar to Great 
Britain which, some may suppose, could have been 
omitted with advantage from this new issue. But 
after a careful examination and much reflection 
and counsel, it has been deemed best, to avoid any 
possible charge of injustice to the author, who has 
within a few years gone up to his reward, to reissue it 
without alteration or abridgment. Let it, however, 

3 



4 NOTICE. 

be borne in mind that it was originally intended 
more especially for British readers. 

The volume is now sent forth afresh, with the 
earnest hope of all concerned that it may carry new 
life and a blessing from on high to the ministry of our 
American Presbyterian Church, and especially to our 
more youthful ministers. 

Editor of the Board. 

Philashlphia, A. D. 1868. 



INTRODUCTION. 

By the Rev. JONATHAN B. CONDIT, D.D. 



The Christian ministry, in its character and work, is a 
subject of growing interest in this country. During the 
last twenty-five years it has been the object of much effort 
to furnish a sufficient number of men to meet the demand. 
The claims of the office have been set forth strongly in 
view of our extending and destitute population. Institu- 
tions have been multiplied for the purpose of educating 
men for the work. So deeply has this necessity been felt, 
and so many were the agencies to be organized and sus- 
tained to supply it, that we have been in danger of think- 
ing too little of the character of the ministry. While the 
efforts to increase its numbers ought not to be diminished, 
it must not be forgotten that a numerous ministry may not 
be an efficient one. 

Many, it is believed, will rejoice in the appearance of 
this work by Mr. James, who has presented the subject, 
in one of its departments, in a most impressive manner, 
If the respected author had written for American readers, 
doubtless some things would have been omitted. But 
nothing will be found in the book to hinder its usefulness. 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

It is obvious that the subject has deeply interested the 
mind of the writer. An earnest heart guides his able pen. 
No minister, or candidate for the ministry, can read the 
book without receiving a deep impression of the greatness 
of the trust and some valuable aid in the discharge of it. 

It is generally acknowledged, that we must rely on the 
living ministry as the principal agency for the extension of 
the Gospel in this land, not simply in view of the prom- 
inence which Christ has given it in his word, and in the 
progress of the church, but because of its adaptation to 
the condition and character of the people. 

The mind of this nation presents some remarkable fea- 
tures in its present character and position, deeply interest- 
ing to the Christian as well as the philosopher and states- 
man. It is an intellectual life which is not marked by the 
quiet pursuit of its object, but by an incessant and hurried 
movement. It is not the intellectual action of a few, con- 
centrating in one constellation the light of the age, but 
it involves the entire people. It is pre-eminently a dif- 
fused mental activity. The superiority of mental energy 
is acknowledged from the town-hall of the country village, 
to the chamber of the senate. If this action is somewhat 
superficial, and if it is often sustained by unhealthy means, 
yet it is everywhere discernible. 

This mind is not of one common type, not having been 
educated under the same political institutions, nor taken 
the impress of any one system of religious faith. Many 
old erroneous opinions, as well as new, have their ad- 
herents, and are struggling for prevalence over the truth. 
We have a mixture of intellectual and moral elements, 
strikingly diverse. Tributaries from every quarter of the 
globe are finding their way into our stream, and must ul- 
timately impart to it tl.sir different hues. We wonder not 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

that the wisest arc unable to foretell what is to be the result 
in respect to the strength and permanence of government or 
the religious character of coming o-enerations. We wonder 
not that we witness the conflict of thought and feeling ; or 
that we are sometimes shaken with a sudden and violent con- 
cussion. These cross-currents of mind will be likely to keep 
up a deep agitation. 

We must have a religious agency* which is fitted to meet 
this posture of things. It must be that which will power- 
fully arrest mind, in the midst of its warm conflicts, and 
bring the Gospel in its full power to the sympathies and 
hearts of the people. It must be that which will come in 
where worldliness, ignorance, and corruption reign, with 
resources adapted to overcome prejudice, supplant error, 
and lay broad and permanent foundations for the reign of 
truth and righteouness. It must possess the wisdom, 
energy, and facility in action to meet character and opinion 
of every type, and with the divine blessing to mould them 
according to the truth and law of God. 

To what agency do such qualifications belong, if not to 
the Christian ministry ? It comes with the power of a 
living character, visibly illustrating and practically enforc- 
ing the truth. By its ever-living presence it encompasses 
mind with an attracting and moulding influence. To this, 
it adds the wondrous influence of oral delivery. We im- 
pute no magic charm to the human voice and countenance. 
Yet that voice is made to speak the truth in tones which 
move the heart. In the human face there is a strange 
power of speech. , It is the language of the soid kindling 
into sympathy with it the souls of the hearers. Reason 
about it as we may, the fact is as wonderful now as it 
ever was. There is no example of influence over mind 
more simpl and sublime than that of a man of God in the 



V1U INTRODUCTION. 

earnest delivery of the gospel message. He does not 
exert it by means of unholy stratagem or mere novelties in 
style and action, but by the exhibition of truth on old, 
familiar themes, with old and familiar tones. But he ex- 
hibits that truth with a heart all glowing under its power. 
He separates his hearers from the associations of worldly 
business, and gathers them into the presence of Jehovah. 
He charges their sins against them, arraigns them at the 
bar of God, and pronounces their doom as impenitent men. 
Now he collects over them the clouds of Divine wrath, and 
then he draws them around the cross and makes them hear 
the winning voice of the Redeemer. He does it with the 
strength and courage imparted by confidence in God, but 
with the humility and love of a man and a sinner. They 
love to hear the tones of such a voice ; to feel the power 
of that speaking eye, as that voice and that eye utter the 
gushing thoughts of a spirit intensely moved in sympathy 
with them. Yv T hat reader of Edwards' sermon, entitled 
" Sinners in the hands of an angry God," is impressed 
as they were who heard him utter it in the solemn earnest- 
ness of the pulpit? We read the sermons of Whitfield 
without the realization of the power w r hich accompanied 
his preaching. We by no means attribute the astonishing 
effects of his preaching only to his look, tone, and action as 
a speaker. We forget not that these were the expression 
of a soul, into the depths of which the truth had come with 
a penecrating, awakening influence, and that the power of 
God attended him. Yet, in his ready speech, so as never 
" to stumble at a word, and never to stop for the want of 
one ;" in his natural gracefulness and inimitable power 
of action ; in his ability "to paint with all the effect of real 
scenery," and to make sinners tremble, as if about to 
sink into perdition, and even belisve themselves doomed 



INTE EDUCTION, IX 

as in the tone and air of a judge he pronounced the sen- 
tence, " Depart !" — we have those qualities which constitute 
the peculiar advantage of the preacher in gaining attention 
to the truth, and which are worthy of being diligently 
cultivated. 

Now we affirm that in view of the genius and habits of 
our people, we must look to the living ministry to do a 
great work in this nation. Such an agency will accord 
with the method of awakening and guiding mind in other 
departments of thought and action among all classes. If 
this is true of the older sections of the country, it is even 
more characteristic of communities less enlightened, and 
less disciplined to the patient study of truth. The people 
are accustomed to instruction and persuasion by the ear- 
nest speaker. So the voice of the living preacher must 
obtain the ear of the people, as, with the Bible in his hand, 
he unfolds its doctrines, if these glorious truths find a 
lodgment, and mould the mind and character of successive 
generations. We tremble to think of the amazing re- 
sponsibility resting on the gospel ministry in its relation 
to our country's salvation. In view of its intrusted work, 
what importance belongs to its spirit and character. How 
shall it execute its trust without a large endowment of the 
graces of the Spirit, and a Christ-like devotion and self- 
denial ? 

In view of the work which it is called to perform, the 
Christian ministry in this land must be eminently spiritual 
and practical in its character. The importance of a com- 
plete intellectual furniture is not disputed. The point is 
settled that the men who are to occupy the sacred office 
must have the opportunity for making thorough literary 
and theological attainments. The demand for learning in 
the ministry is too loud to be disregarded. Wherever the 

1* 



X INTRODUCTION. 

preacher finds his field of action, he will have occasion 
for the most skilful use of the best weapons. Let him not 
venture forth into the field of battle vvithout full armor. 
But if the result of that intellectual training is to appear 
in abstract, philosophical preaching, the American pulpit 
will never accomplish its appropriate work. Far off be 
the day when the ministers of Christ shall exalt meta- 
physical subtleties above the doctrine of the cross ; when 
they shall seek to attain skill in frigid argumentation, rather 
than a holy facility in the spiritual and practical work of 
guiding souls to Christ and to heaven ; when intellectual 
gratification shall be more thought of than the edification 
of the humble Christian ; in their mode of exhibiting truth, 
overlooking the spiritual wants and difficulties of the com- 
mon mind. Such ministers will make the pulpit jejune and 
powerless in respect to its most essential objects. Their 
cold light will shine without touching the hearts of men. 
They will defeat the mission of truth from the throne to this 
world of sin and darkness. They cannot compass the mighty 
work which God puts into their hands. 

We need a ministry whose intellectual furniture and 
energy have come under the influence of a spiritual 'piety, 
nurtured in communion with Christ. Then it will be 
"strong and do exploits." The preacher must not only 
know what conscience is, but how to reach it with the 
truth. He must know what is the hungering of a soul 
after the bread of life, and how to divide and distribute the 
word so as to satisfy the hungry. It must be the " living 
oread/' and not the speculations of the theorist, however 
expert he may be ; that which will be the element of vigor 
and life to the spiritual man. To show unto men the way 
of salvation, he must regard as the olject worthy of his 
most select and untiring efforts. The practical rules of 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

Christian living, must be his familiar themes of discourse. 
Hence scholastic learning is not enough, lest he be a mere 
scholastic preacher. Rhetorical rules, however thoroughly 
mastered, are not enough, lest he be a mere orator. His 
investigations ot truth, though pursued with enthusiasm, 
and presented in elaborate discussion, will affect no human 
heart, if they are not made to bear directly on the repent- 
ance, faith, and sanctification of men. If his commission 
as minister of the gospel is executed in a manner appro- 
priate to its high designs, he must be a man skilled in the 
workings of the human soul, interested in all the relations 
of common life, and apt in the inculcation of truth with 
regard to all the difficulties and duties of those relations ; 
while he is absorbed in the one great object for which Christ 
died. 

This characteristic of the ministry is worthy to be 
greatly exalted above the observance of any one law in the 
structure of sermons. Yet this is not a point of little mo- 
ment. We should much regret if the American pulpit 
should ever become chiefly hortatory. Examples have 
proved that the pulpit has lost power when the hortatory 
style has been habitually adopted. Earnestness in the pul- 
pit is entirely consistent with a discriminating and instruct- 
ive exhibition of truth. It is by no means supposed that 
this can only be done with written discourses. Yet, while 
some are eminent for such a style of preaching, who seldom 
write, we believe if this practice should become universal, 
the instances would be multiplied in which the perma- 
nent interest and power of the pulpit would not be sus- 
tained. It is admitted that the immediate effects of Pay- 
son's preaching were often most striking in connection with 
some of his unwritten discourses. But this might not have 
been, if he had not preached one written sermon every Sab 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

bath. This, his practice, was doubtless indispensable to 
make his ministry what it was, and to perpetuate its re- 
markable influence. 

The quality of the ministry to which allusion has been 
made, would naturally tend to give it a more scriptural 
character. And what improvement is more desirable than 
a richer infusion into the discourses of the pulpit of the 
pure word of God? Not only make the text penetrate 
the sermon, but let other parts of the Scriptures be made 
to gather around it, to shed light upon it and receive light 
from it. Occasional American hearers of some ministers in 
England and Scotland have marked this characteristic with 
great pleasure. If it should diminish the brilliancy of the 
pulpit it would add to its richness. Fewer orations will be 
delivered, but many better sermons. A prevalent unhealthy 
taste may not be so well satisfied for a time, but a better 
taste will soon be formed. It will furnish the best oppor- 
tunitv for awakening emotion and afTectino' the conscience, 
as well as imparting instruction. Thus obtaining vivid im- 
pressions of truth, the preacher will possess one element of 
true earnestness in the pulpit ; for he will speak not only 
with all the authority of truth, but with a soul deeply im- 
bued with the spirit of it. Then he will have a holy unc- 
tion, and will give forth both light and heat. A spiritual, 
practical, scriptural, as well as learned ministry will be ear- 
nest ; and that is the ministry God will bless for the enlight* 
enment and salvation of our country. 



PROFESSORS AND COMMITTEE 
OF CHESHUNT COLLEGE, 

THE FOLLOWING TREATISE, 

BEING THE EXPANSION OF A SERMON 

PREACHED 

BEFORE THEM AT THEIR LAST ANNIVERSARY, 

IS INSCRIBED 

WITH SENTIMENTS OF AFFECTIONATE RESPECT, 

AND WITH EARNEST PRAYERS 

P?R THE PROSPERITY 

OF TH^IR "VUUABLE INSTITUTION, 

THE AUTHOR. 



CON T E N T S. 



PAGH 

Preface , « . 17 

CHAPTER I. 
The Apostolic Ministry, ........ £3 

CHAPTER II. 

The Nature of Earnestness, 33 

CHAPTER III. 
Earnestness Exemplified in the Matter and Manner of Preach- 
ing, . 71 

CHAPTER IV. 

Earnestness in Reference to Manner, ...... 88 

CHAPTER V. 

Specimens of Earnestness from various Authors, . * . 101 

CHAPTER VI. 
Earnestness, as Manifested in the Delivery of Sermons, . . 124 

CHAPTER Vit 
Earnestness Manifested «n the Pastorate, . . . . .153 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Examples of Earnestness, 167 

CHAPTER IX. 

Motives to Earnestness, * 181 

CHAPTER X. 
Heans to be used for obtaining an Earnest Ministry, . . .212 

CHAPTER XI. 
)n the Necessity of D ; vine Influence for an Efficient Ministry, . 276 



PREFACE 



Has the modern evangelical pulpit lost, and is it still 
losing, any of its power ? This is a question far too 
momentous to be asked in the spirit of mere curiosity, or 
to be answered in unreflectincr and ignorant haste, An 
affirmative reply involves consequences so deeply and so 
painfully affecting the eternal welfare of mankind, as well 
as the cause of orthodox doctrine, that it should not be 
given but upon indubitable evidence ; while on the other 
hand, a negative answer will only perpetuate the evil, if it 
really exists, by preventing all measures which might be 
taken to correct it. In settling this question, it is neces- 
sary to define what is meant by the loss of the power of 
the pulpit. If by this it is intended only to ask whether 
evangelical ministrations have lost their attractiveness in 
drawing the people together to hear them, it may be un- 
hesitatingly affirmed that they have not, for perhaps there 
was never anything approaching the numbers which now 
are found listening to the glad tidings of salvation. The 
true intent of the inquiry then is this : Has the modern 
pulpit lost any of its efficacy as regards the great end for 
which the Gospel is preached, that is, the conversion of 



XVI11 TREFACE. 

sinners, and the spiritual advancement of believers ? In 
coming to a right conclusion upon this matter, another in- 
quiry still must be proposed, which is this : With what past 
period of history is the present compared ? If Ave go back 
to the time of Baxter, Howe, Owen, Bates, Manton, 
and Charnock, there can be little reason to believe, it may 
be presumed, that the moderns preach with the same results 
that these men did. As little can it be questioned whether 
Whitfield and Wesley, with the men called up by their 
labors, proclaimed the gospel of the grace of God, with 
more power and success than the preachers of the present 
day. It is better, therefore, to limit the range of inquiry 
to the last quarter of a century, and to state the matter 
thus : Does the preaching of the gospel now, taking all 
evangelical denominations into the investigation, appear to 
be followed with the same saving and sanctifying results, 
as it was then ; and if not, does there appear to be a pro- 
gressive diminution of effect still going on ? 

This, it must be obvious, is a question which cannot be 
settled by very accurate statistics, and for the solution of 
which we must depend pretty much upon general reports, 
and concurrent testimony. It may be asked, then, whether 
the want of efficiency is not matter of acknowledgment 
and lamentation by all evangelical bodies ? True it is that 
to a certain extent similar acknowledgments and lamenta- 
tions have been made in every age, and by ministers of all 
denominations. But the inquiry now supposed is made 
chiefly by those who compare themselves with themselves ; 
and their success at the present time, with their own suc- 
cess in the past time. The confession from the United 
States, made by Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Bap- 
tists and Methodists, is concurrent, that there is a flatness 
over the churches, that revivals are ran, and conversions 



PREFACE. XIX 

few, while tne power of godliness among professing Chris- 
tians is low. The Methodist body in these United King- 
doms, reported last year but an increase of about seven 
hundred members. The evangelical clergy of the Church 
of England lament the want of conversions by their preach- 
ing, and confess that the power of Venn, and Romaine, 
and Cecil, and Newton, seems wanting to their succes- 
sors. The Baptists and Independents have no better 
report to make. Dr. Chalmers, in a late article in the 
North British Review, in speaking of Scotland, and that at 
a time when the disruption of the Presbyterian Establish- 
ment might have been supposed to have given new 
activity to the Free Church at least, uses the following 
mournful language : " As things stand at present, our 
creeds and confessions have become effete, and the Bible 
a dead letter ; and the orthodoxy which was at one time 
the glory, by withering into the inert and lifeless, is now 
the shame and reproach of all our churches." This is 
strong language, and a startling opinion. But the most 
melancholy thing connected with it is its truth. 

Assuming then the fact that the modern evangelical 
pulpit has lost, and is losing, something of its power, in 
the way of converting sinners, and carrying forward the 
spiritual life of believers, it surely becomes ns all to reflect 
upon the painful fact with the deepest seriousness, and the 
' most intense anxiety, and at the same time to inquire after 
the cause. It would ill become us, in a spirit of antino- 
mian indolence or fanaticism, to resolve this whole matter 
into Divine sovereignty, and to say, " God wills it." With 
the same reason, and on as good ground, might the im- 
penitent sinner be satisfied with his condition, and trace it 
up to a withholding of the influence necessary for his con- 
version. That there is a suspension of Divine influence 



XX PREF CE. 

must be admitted, if there be a diminished saving result ; 
but as the Spirit uses appropriate means, may not this 
very suspension itself be traced up to some fault of the 
preachers themselves ? Would not a different order of 
means lead to a removal of this suspension of the Spirit's 
power ? The question for us to ask in all seriousness and 
prayerful examination, is this : Does the diminished power 
of the pulpit arise from a diminished adaptation of the 
pulpit, or is the deficiency which is lamented to be traced 
up exclusively to the circumstances of the times that are 
now passing over us ? Something may be set down to 
both these causes. 

This is a matter that concerns all, and deeply concerns 
them too, for the tendency of decline is always downward ; 
what is weak will become weaker, if not stopped. 

There is another consideration which may account for 
the diminished effect of the pulpit, and that is an increased 
power of the press and of the school. At one time the 
preacher had the public mind almost to himself. There 
were indeed Bibles, and schools, and tracts, but how few 
and uninfluential, compared with what they are in the pres- 
ent day ! Evangelical truth now comes before the million 
in every possible variety of form, and in every variable quan- 
tity : the child learns its lessons from the Sunday school 
teacher, and the poorest adult reads it at home in the tract 
and the penny magazine ; and though this is a help in one 
respect to the preacher, it takes from him all the advantage 
which novelty of representation can give him, for he has 
been already forestalled by the living voice of the teacher, 
and the silent invitations of the tract. These auxiliaiy 
means of conversion will never supersede the pulpit, if the 
pulpit does not allow itself to he superseded ; but it is evi- 
dent that such competitors with it as these for the public 



PREFACE. XXI 

mind, should increase its labors to be, what God ever in- 
tended it to be, his power to the salvation of men. That 
the pulpit has nothing to fear from the increase of religious 
knowledge by the school and the press, is evident from the 
fact that as science multiplies its treatises, and cheapens 
them down to the poorest pocket, it multiplies in equal 
proportion its public lecturers. 

The views thus set forth in this preface will account for 
the subject of the volume which they introduce. We live 
in an earnest age, and nothing but an earnest ministry may 
hope to succeed in it. With this conviction, when honored 
with an invitation to preach last year the anniversary ser- 
mon for Cheshunt College* the author found his subject in 
his own views and convictions. The publication of the 
discourse then preached was solicited at the time of its 
delivery ; but as it was given to the world pretty fully in 
the pages of the Patriot newspaper, he abandoned all 
thoughts of complying with a request so kindly preferred. 

His attention was, however, called again to the subject, 
and his resolution changed by the solicitation of that dis- 
tinguished man who presides over the collegiate institution 
at Cheshunt with so much wisdom and dignity ; and who 
to all his other works, so rich in practical piety, has added 
another of a very different kind, which, while it lays the 
world under deep obligations to its author, will associate 
the name of Dr. Harris with the most profound religious 
philosophers of any age or any country. May his valuable 
life be spared to complete that magnificent series of trea- 
tises, which, with such adventurous but well-balanced in- 
tellect, he has projected, and of- which the volume lately 
issued is but the commencement ! 

When revising the manuscript for publication, the author 
of this work found it admitted of more expansion of thought 



XXII PREFACE. 

and more extended amplification than at first struck him ; 
and he resolved as soon as time should be found for it, to 
prepare a small treatise which should have a better chance 
of living than an ephemeral pamphlet. The subject grew 
under his hand, and has at length swelled into this volume. 
In undertaking to become, especially at such length, the 
counsellor of his brethren, he can scarcely acquit himself 
of the charge of presumption. He feels that he has little 
claim upon the attention of his fellow laborers in the 
ministry, even the youngest of them, and very little right 
to ask it. True it is that he is now arrived at an age when 
he takes his place among the fathers ; but then years do 
not always teach wisdom. It is no less true that he has 
now labored two and forty years in the ministry of #ie 
Word, and has had no very limited opportunity of observing 
and of knowing, experimentally, what contributes to minis- 
terial acceptableness and usefulness ; still he can truly say, 
without a grain of vanity concealed under a simulated 
modesty, he offers the present treatise to the notice of his 
brethren, with fear and trembling. He knows that what 
is offered to them should, both as to matter and manner, 
be worthy of their attention ; and had he a literary reputa- 
tion to sustain, over which he was jealous even to fastidi- 
ousness, he would feel still more solicitude about the 
reception of his work ; but as he aims at nothing but use- 
fulness, without making any pretensions to a finished style, 
he can ask them to accept it as an affectionate endeavor, 
made in his own way, to aid their usefulness. God has 
helped him to do something for His cause, and knowing 
how it has been done, he- is anxious to draw others into 
the same way. And now while his shadows lengthen on 
the plain, and his eye is on the declining sun, he feels that 
in the review of life, the thought of having done something 



PREFACE. XX1U 

to save souls from leath is more precious, than could have 
been b_s consciousness of having made the largest acquire- 
ments of learning and science. There is a time coming in 
every man's history when the knowledge of having been 
the instrument to pluck a single brand from the eternal 
burning, will yield more real satisfaction than the certainty 
of having accomplished the loftiest objects of literary 
ambition. 

The author anticipates a remark which will be made by 
many of the readers of this volume, that it is a book of 
extracts. They will, however, have no cause to complain 
of this, since what he has given from the stores of other 
men's thoughts is so much better than what he could have 
brought from his own. Besides, in so important a matter 
as advice to the ministry, he was anxious to be sustained 
in what he advanced, by the authority of men, whose 
names and counsels would cany far more weight than his 
own. Be it so, then, that the book will present the 
appearance of a literary mosaic, — the author is quite 
content, for the sake of such precious stones, that his 
own part of the volume should perform no higher office 
than to be the framework in which they are set. 

There will be found some repetitions of sentiment, and 
even of expression, in the work ; and this was hardly to be 
avoided from the nature of the subject. It is a poor 
excuse for imperfections, to plead the want of time for 
correcting them ; and yet it is the best excuse the author 
has to make for the many that will be found in his little 
volume. His situation exposes him to a thousand vexatious 
interruptions, which many in more retired nooks know 
nothing about. These pages have been written amidst 
such abounding and various occupations, that they could 



XXIV PREFACE. 

be composed only during snatches of time redeemed from 
other duties, and from the intervals of busy activities. 

If this work should do nothing more than draw the 
attention of writers in our Reviews and Magazines, as w r ell 
as of our more talented authors, to a renewed considera- 
tion of that most vital point, our ministry, it will, howevei 
humble are its pretensions and low its merits, have accom- 
plished a high and holy vocati; n. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 



" Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did 
beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to 
God."— 2 Cor. v. 20. 



In this truly wonderful passage, viewed in connection 
with its context, are set before us with beautiful simplicity, 
yet with surpassing grandeur, the theme, the design, and 
the method of the Christian ministry : the theme is God 
reconciling the world to himself, a subject compared with 
which the negotiations of hostile nations and the treaties 
which put an end to the horrors of war, and bind in con- 
cord the fiercest passions of humanity, are matters of only 
momentary and limited importance : the design of the 
ministry, which is strictly in harmony with its theme, is to 
bring sinful men into actual reconciliation with God on the 
ground of that system of mediation through Christ, which 
God himself has devised and proclaimed : and its method 
is the earnestness of persuasion addressed to the rebel 
heart of man, to induce him to lay aside his enmity against 
his offended Sovereign, and to accept the offer of a gracious 
amnesty. The union and the harmony of these three views 
of the ministry are singularly impressive : he who leaves 
out the great scheme of Christian reconciliation from his 

2 



26 THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 

habitual ministration, omits the divinely appointed theme : 
he who does not supremely aim to bring sinners into a 
state of actual friendship with God, falls short of the 
design of the sacred office ; while he who does not employ 
all the arts and efforts of persuasion, mistakes the method 
of fulfilling its duties. 

As the apostle is writing to a Christian church, it is per- 
haps a matter of surprise to some that he should entreat 
Hum to be reconciled to God, who by their very profession 
of religion must have been supposed to be already in that 
state. Upon looking attentively at the passage the reader 
will perceive that the pronouns of the second person are 
in italics, intimating that they are not in the original Greek, 
but are supplied in our English translation to complete the 
sense ; consequently any other term that would accom- 
plish this better may be substituted for them. If there- 
fore we put the substantive " men," instead of the pronoun 
" you" in the first clause of the verse, and the third per- 
sonal pronoun "them" for the second personal pronoun 
" you" in the latter clause, we shall avoid the improbabil- 
ity of his calling upon professing Christians to come into 
a state to which they must be supposed to have already 
attained, and shall bring out what the apostle intended to 
set forth, the usual manner in which he discharged the 
functions of his momentous office ; and with the alterations 
it would read thus : " As ambassadors for Christ, as though 
God did beseech men by us, we pray them in Christ's stead 
to be reconciled to God." It was as if he had said, 
" Wherever we go, we find men in unprovoked hostility, 
inveterate enmity, and mad rebellion against God's holy 
nature, law, and government. We carry with us, as his 
ambassadors, the proclamation of mercy through the me- 
diation of our Lord Jasus Christ, We tell them that we 



THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 27 

are appointed by the God whom they have offended, and 
who could overwhelm them with the terrors of his justice, 
to call upon them to lay down their arms and accept the 
offer of eternal pardon and peace : but we find them every- 
where so bent upon their sins and the enjoyment of their 
worldly occupations and possessions, that we are compelled 
to use the language of the most vehement entreaty, and to 
beseech and implore them, in God's name, and in Christ's 
stead, to come into a state of reconciliation." 

The apostle not only used the most intense earnestness 
of entreaty as an expression of his own concern, but he 
told the objects of his imploring anxiety that his importu- 
nity for their welfare was but an imitation of, and a substitute 
for, that of God himself — that his beseeching solicitation 
to them, on behalf of their own salvation, was uttered in 
Christ's stead. This is the most wonderful scene that the 
universe will ever witness — a beseeching God, and an im- 
ploring Saviour, standing at the door of the sinner's heart 
with eternal salvation in his hand, knocking for entrance, 
and begging to be let in; the insulted Omnipotent Creator 
of the universe, beseeching a worm, whom a volition of 
his will could sink in a moment to perdition, and whose 
justice would be glorified in the act, to accept his pardon- 
ing mercy ; and waiting, year after year, in all long-suffer- 
ing, for the sinner's reconsideration of his obstinate refu- 
sals. Be astonished, heavens ! at God's unutterable 
mercy, and be horribly afraid, earth ! at man's indescri- 
bable wickedness ! Here is the climax of God's divine 
love, and man's desperate depravity. Infinite benevolence 
did not reach its uttermost when Jesus Christ was nailed 
to the cross ; that was reserved for the scene before us. 

I might, with ineffable delight, expatiate at length on 
this scene of matchless meicy; but I pass 01. to other 



28 THE APOSTOLIC MINIoIRY. 

applications of the passage appropriate to the subject 
before us ; and what a view does it give us of the Christian 
ministr}^. It is an embassy from God to mar,, and there- 
fore how dignified and honorable ! I admit that it is only 
in a qualified sense that the title and office of an " ambas- 
sador" for Christ can be applied to the ordinary ministers 
of the gospel : but in such a sense it may be applied to 
them, since they are ordained to do what he would do 
were he personally present : they are to propose the same 
blessings, to lay down the same terms of peace, as he 
would, were he again on earth, and are, therefore, so far, his 
ambassadors : and if the honor of an ambassador be in 
proportion to the power and glory of the sovereign that 
employs him, what is the dignity of him who is the ambas- 
sador of the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; and, at 
the same time, what ought to be the sanctity of his conduct, 
and the elevation of his character ? If nothing unworthy 
of the monarch who sends him, and the nation which he 
represents, should be done by him who is dispatched on 
an embassy to a foreign court and people, how vigilant and 
solicitous to do nothing unworthy of God and his Christ, 
should he be whose business it is to negotiate with man 
the weighty affairs of judgment and of mercy from Hea- 
ven. If he bears the dignity of office, let him couple with 
it a corresponding dignity of character. How natural, 
how just, how necessary the reflection, "lam an ambas- 
sador for Christ : what manner of person ought I to be in 
all holy conversation and godliness ? "What should I be 
who represent, so far as my office is concerned, the Ma- 
jesty of heaven and earth?" 

The ministry of the gospel is shown in this passage to be 
an embassy of peace : this is its very designation, " the 
ministry of reconciliation." Never was anything more 



THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 29 

beautiful expressed or conceived : nothing could be de- 
vised to throw over the ministry a charm of greater loneli- 
ness. If in one hand the preacher of the gospel carry the 
sword of the Spirit, it is only to slay the sin; while he 
holds forth the olive bra] ich in the other, as the token of 
peace and life to the sinner. He enters the scene of strife 
and discord to harmonize the jarring elements, and goes to 
the field of conflict to reconcile the contending parties. It 
is his to proclaim the treaty of man's peace with God, to 
explain its terms, to urge its acceptance, and to bring the 
sinner into friendship with his offended Lawgiver ) to carry 
peace into man's troubled bosom, and reconcile him to his 
own conscience ; to cast out the enmities and prejudices of 
his selfish and depraved heart, and to unite him by charity 
to his fellows ; to calm down the violence of his temper, 
and give him peace at home ; and then to conduct him to 
the realms of undisturbed tranquillity in the celestial 
world. This is his business. Angels hover over him in 
his course, and chant over his labors their ancient song, 
" Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and 
good will to men ;" redeemed men and women saved by 
his instrumentality from the wrath of God, the stings of 
conscience, and the turbulence of passion, hail him in the 
language of the prophet, " How beautiful upon the moun- 
tains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that 
publisheth peace ;" while the Saviour himself pronounceth 
upon him the beatitude, " Blessed are the peace-makers ; 
for they shall be called the children of God." Honored 
and happy man, where thy labors are faithful and success- 
ful : minister of reconciliation, friend and promoter of 
peace, the world knoweth thee not, because it knew not 
Christ ; nor, perhaps, does even the church duly appreci- 
ate or adequately reward thy services ; but even now thy 



30 THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 

work is its own reward : peace attends up v n thy steps, and 
its blessings spring up in thy path. 

But still it is an embassy of difficulty. It is to treat with 
those who are unwilling to be saved, and to persuade the 
sinful, proud, and stubborn heart:; of men to capitulate to 
holiness and grace. The minister carries the offer of infi- 
nite and ineffable blessedness, but it is to men who have no 
taste for that species of felicity. His were an easy office 
did he find men everywhere predisposed to close in with 
the proposals of infinite benevolence ; but he meets, 
wherever he goes, with hearts, not only indifferent, but 
hostile, to his message. The parable which represents the 
excuses made for not coining to the marriage feast, is still 
applicable to the children of men in reference to the invita- 
tions of the gospel : men are, as they ever were, too busy, 
or too well satisfied with their enjoyments and possessions, 
to care about salvation. They are madly set upon the 
objects of the present world ; they are asleep, and need to 
be roused ; careless, and need to be interested ; indolent, 
and need to be stimulated ; and it is with the greatest diffi- 
culty we can engage their attention to the invisible realities 
of eternity. No one can form a true estimate of the na- 
ture, design, and difficulties of the ministerial office, who 
leaves out of view the desperate wickedness of the human 
heart : and the reason why there is so little of that hard 
labor, and intense earnestness, and beseeching entreaty in 
the ministers of the gospel is, that there is the want of 
that deep conviction or proper consideration of the resist- 
ance to their endeavors which is perpetually meeting them 
from the sinner's heart. 

This brings me to the subject of my present discourse, 
and that is the necessity of an earnest ministry. Nothing 
k «ss than earnestness can succeed in any cases of great 



THE AFOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 31 

difficulty ; and the earnestness must of course be in pro- 
portion to the difficulty to be surmounted. Great obsta- 
cles cannot be overcome without intense application of the 
mind. How then can the work of the ministry be accom- 
plished ? Every view we can take of it replies, " Only by 
earnestness." Every syllable of the apostle's language 
replies, "Only by earnestness." Every survey we can 
take of human nature replies, " Only by earnestness." 
Every recollection of our own experience, as well as every 
observation we can make of the experience of others, re- 
plies, " Only by earnestness." This, this is what we 
want, and must have, if the ends of the gospel are ever to 
be extensively accomplished — an earnest ministry. 

We have heard much of late about a learned ministry, 
and God forbid we should ever be afflicted by so great an 
evil as an unlearned one. We have been often reminded of 
the necessity of an educated ministry ; and in this case, as 
in every other, men must be educated for their Vocation ; 
but then that education must be strictly appropriate and 
specific. We are very properly told from many quarters, 
we can do nothing without a pious ministry. Nothing can 
be more true, nor can any truth bearing upon this subject 
be more momentous ; for of all the curses which God ever 
pours from the vials of his wrath upon a nation which he 
intends to scourge, there is not one so fearful as giving 
•them up to an unholy ministry. I trust our churches will 
ever consider piety as the first and most essential qualifica- 
tion in their pastors, for which talents, genius, learning, 
and eloquence, would and could be no substitutes. It 
w T ill be a dark and evil day when personal godliness shall be 
placed second to anything else in those who serve at the 
altar of God. But still there is something else wanted in 
addition to natural talent, to academic training, and even 



32 THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 

to the most fervent, evangelical piety, and thkfc is, intense 
devotedness. 

It appears to me that this is the one thing more than 
any, or all other things, that is wanting in the modern 
pulpit, and that has been wanting in most ages of the 
Christian church. In a valuable article in a late num- 
ber of the British Quarterly Review occurs the following 
sentence : " No ministry will be really effective, whatever 
may be its intelligence, which is not a ministry of strong 
faith, true spirituality, and deep earnestness/ ' I wish this 
golden sentence could be inscribed in characters of light, 
over every professor's chair, over every student's desk, 
and over every preacher's pulpit. Condensed into that 
one short paragraph is everything that needs be said on 
this subject. I feel as though every syllable I have to 
write were superfluous, if all our pastors, students, and tu- 
tors would let that one sentence take full occupation of 
their hearts, possess their whole souls, and regulate aU 
their conduct. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

Perhaps there is scarcely one single phrase more fre- 
quently employed in the sphere of human activity, or 
better understood, than this — Be in earnest. What dis- 
tinctness of aim, what fixedness of purpose, what resolute- 
ness of will, what diligence, patience, and perseverance of 
action, are implied or expressed in these three words. He 
who would stimulate indolence, quicken activity, and inspire 
hope ; he who would breathe his own soul into the soul of 
another, and kindle the enthusiasm which glows in his 
own bosom, says to his fellow, " Be in earnest :" and that 
short sentence, uttered by his lips, has often been like a 
scintillation flying off from his own ardent soul, which, 
lighting upon the spirit of the individual whom he was 
anxious to move to some great enterprise, has kindled 
the flames of enthusiasm there also. And what else, 01 
what less, does Jesus Christ say to every one whom he 
sends into the work of the Christian ministry than "Be in 
earnest ?" 

There is something in the aspect and power of earnest- 
ness, whatever be its object, that is impressive and com- 
manding. To see a man selecting some one object of 
pursuit, and then yielding up his soul to the desire of its 
attainment, with a surrender which admits of no reserve, 

2* 



34 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

a steadiness of aim which allows of no diversion, and a 
diligence which consents neither to rest nor intermission ; 
which is so uppermost in his heart as to fill his conversa- 
tion, and so entirely and constantly before his mind as to 
throw into its broad shadow every other subject of con- 
sideration ; and which borrows from the intensity of his 
own feeling, a strange fascination to engage the feelings of 
others — such an instance of decision, amounting to a ruling 
passion, exerts over us, while witnessing it, an inlluence 
which we feel to be contagious. We involuntarily, to a 
certain extent, sympathize with the individual who is thus 
carried away by his own fervor ; and if at the same time 
all this be an earnestness for promoting our own interests, 
its effect is absolutely irresistible. That man must be a 
stone, and destitute of the ordinary feelings of humanity, 
who can see another interested, active, and zealous for his 
welfare, while he himself remains inert and indifferent. 
Even the apathetic and indolent have sometimes been 
kindled into ardor, and led to make efforts for themselves, 
by the solicitude which others have manifested for their 
welfare. 

How strictly does this apply to the ministry of the 
Word, which relates to the most momentous matters that 
can engage the attention of the human understanding. 
Sympathy is a law of our mental economy which has never 
been sufficiently taken into the account in estimating the 
influences which God employs for the salvation of men. 
There is a silent and almost unperceived process of thought 
often going on in the mind of those who are listening to 
the sermons of a preacher really laboring for the conver- 
sion of souls, of this kind : " Is he so earnest about my 
salvation, and shall I care nothing about the matter ? Is 
my eternal. happiness so much in his account, and shall it 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 35 

be nothing in mine ? I can meet cold logic with counter- 
arguments, or at any rate, I can raise up difficulties against 
evidence. I can smile at the artifices of rhetoric, and be 
pleased with the displays of eloquence. I can sit unmoved 
under sermons which seem intended by the preacher to 
raise my estimate of himself, but I cannot stand this earn- 
estness about me. The man is evidently intent upon saving 
my soul. I feel the grasp of his hand laying hold of my 
arm as if he would pluck me out of the fire. He has not 
only made me think, but he has made me feel. Kis earn- 
estness has subdued me." 

But it will be necessary now to meet and answer the 
question, What is meant by an earnest ministry ? 

I remark, in the first place, that earnestness implies, 
The selection of some one object of pursuit, and a vivid per- 
ception of its value and importance. It is next to impossi- 
ble for the mind to be intently employed, or the heart 
very deeply engaged, on a multiplicity of objects at once. 
We have not energy enough to be so divided and distrib- 
uted. Our feelings, to run with force, must flow pretty 
much in one channel : the attention must be concentrated, 
the purpose settled, the action expended, upon one thing, 
or there can be no efficiency. The earnest man is a man 
of one idea, and that one idea occupies, possesses, and fills 
his soul. To every other claimant upon his time, and re- 
gard, and labor, he says, " Stand by ; I am engaged, I 
cannot attend to you ; there is something else waiting for 
me." To that one thing he is committed. There may be 
many subordinate matters, amidst which he divides what 
may be called the surplus water, but the main current 
flows through one channel, and turns one great wheel. 
This " one thing I do," is his plan and resolution. Many 
wonder at his choice, many condemn it : no matter, lie 



86 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

understands it, approves it, and pursues it amidst the 
ignorance which cannot comprehend it, or the peculiarity 
of taste which cannot admire it. He is no double-minded 
man, unstable in all his ways, whose preference and pur- 
pose are shaken by every cross-current of opinion. It is 
nothing to him what others do, or what they say of Ms 
doing : he must do that, whatever else he leaves undone. 
No one can be in earnest who has not thus made up his 
mind, and he who has, and is resolutely bent upon it, 
keeps the object constantly before his mind ; his attention 
is so strongly and tenaciously fixed upon it, that even at 
the greatest distance, " as the Egyptian pyramids to trav- 
ellers, it appears to him with a luminous distinctness, as if 
it were nigh, and beguiles the toilsome length of labor and 
enterprise by which he must reach it." It is so conspicu- 
ous before him that he does not deviate a step from the 
right direction, and every movement and every day is an 
approximation. Break in upon him at any moment, you 
know where you shall find him, and how employed. 

There is the first part of the description of an earnest 
minister : he too has selected his object, and made up his 
mind concerning it, and insulating it from all others, sets 
it clearly and distinctly before his mind. And what is it ? 
What should it be ? Not science, nor literature, nor phi- 
losophy ; not a life spent in the acquisition of knowledge, 
nor the gratification of taste ; not the power of adding to 
the treasures of national elegance in the department of 
letters, nor to the ornaments which embellish our civilized 
existence, and give amenity to our social intercourse. The 
man who has entered the sacred office merely to luxuriate 
in the haunts of the muses, has mistaken his errand to the 
pulpit, and is no less guilty, though somewhat less sordid, 
than he that says, " Put me in the priest's office that I 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 37 

mav eat a niorsel of bread." That a minister may to a 
certain extent indulge a literary or scientific taste, and 
could even make it subservient to a higher and more 
sacred object, is admitted. The pulpit has done, and is 
doing, much service in all the departments of learning and 
philosophy. It is in Christian countries that the valuable 
remains of Eastern, Greek, and Roman wisdom and elo- 
quence have been preserved, studied, imitated, and some- 
times even excelled. Christian nations have conducted 
philosophical inquiries with the best success, and improved 
them for the most useful and benevolent purposes. " If 
these things are good and profitable unto society, a large 
portion of the honor of such usefulness belongs to men set 
•for the defence of the gospel, desirous by sound reasoning 
to convince gainsayers, and conscious what arms human 
literature furnishes for this holy war. And then in addi- 
tion to all this, consider the effect of the pulpit upon what 
might be called the popular mind. To thousands who 
have comparatively little leisure or opportunity to form 
their taste, and cultivate their rational powers, by conver- 
sation with the wise and enlightened, or by reading their 
works, a school is thus open, established indeed for higher 
purposes, where men of sound understandings, though low 
in rank, may, without expense, and almost without intend- 
ing it, learn from example to distinguish or connect ideas, 
to infer one truth from another, to examine the force of an 
argument, and so to arrange and express their sentiments 
as deeply to impress themselves and others. As in a few 
years the child gradually acquires the faculty of speaking 
his mother-tongue with a considerable degree of ease and 
fluency, without any formal lessons, merely by hearing it 
spoken, so there is a natural logic and rhetoric which some 
acquire without designing it,' who go to church for nobler 



3 » NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

ends, whereby they are enabled to detect the cunning craft- 
iness with which the enemies of religion or of public tran- 
quillity lie in wait to deceive. Indeed, the culture of the 
talents and improvements of that respectable class of men 
who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, generally 
rises or falls in proportion to the character and genius of 
their religious instructors." 

This is as true as it is beautiful, and should remind all 
ministers of the gospel of the necessity and importance, at 
all times, but especially in such times as these, of keeping 
in mind the collateral and secondary objects of pulpit 
Instruction, and of preparing themselves for conducting it 
with power and efficiency. There is not a temporal inter- 
est of man as an individual, or of society, on which the 
sermons and general influence of the ministry may not be 
made to bear ; but then it must never be forgotten that 
these things which have just been enumerated, are at best 
only the incidental, secondary, and collateral benefits of the 
ministry of the Word : they are among the many things 
that may be touched, but are not the one thing that must 
be grasped : they are, as I have already said, like the little 
lateral rills which may be led off from the main stream for 
the purpose of irrigation, but are not the great body of 
water that rolls onward in its channel for the purpose of 
commerce and national wealth. 

Nor is it the great object of our ministry merely to pre- 
side with dignity over the solemnities of public worship ; 
to content ourselves and please our people with preparing 
and delivering two well-studied discourses on the Sabbath ; 
to keep all quiet and orderly in the church ; to maintain a 
kind of religious respectability and intellectuality in the 
congregation ; and to infuse into them much of the element 
of political power. The end and aim of the ministry are 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 39 

to bo gathered from the apostle's solemn and comprehen- 
sive language, " they watch for your souls as they that 
must give account." There, in that short, but sublime 
and awful sentence, the end of the pastoral office is set 
before us. The design of the pulpit is in harmony with 
that of the cross ; and the preacher is to cany out the 
design of the Saviour in coming to seek and to save that 
which was lost. Preaching and teaching are the very 
agency which Jesus Christ employs to save those souls for 
which he died upon Calvary. If souls are not saved, what- 
ever other designs are accomplished, the great purpose of 
the ministry is defeated. 

We are now prepared to understand what is the nature 
of real earnestness in a minister. I mean a distinct, explicit, 
practical recognition of his duty to labor for the salvation 
of souls as the end of his office. Such a man has settled 
with himself that this is his vocation and his business. He 
has looked at everything which could be presented to his 
mind, has weighed the claims of all, and with intelligence 
and firmness has said, and is prepared to stand by his 
affirmation, "I watch for souls." He thus understands 
his errand ; he is under no mistake, no uncertainty, no 
confusion. He has entered into fellowship with God the 
Father in his eternal purpose of the salvation of the human 
race ; with the Son in the end of his incarnation and death ; 
and with the Holy Spirit in his coming down upon our 
desolate world. Of this salvation, which is the object of 
his ministry, the prophets inquired ; to accomplish it 
apostles preached, and angels ministered ; and thus justi- 
fied in his choice by the Triune God and the noblest of his 
creatures in the universe, he leaves far below him, in the 
aspirations and the soarings of his ambition, the scjiolar, 
the philosopher and the poet. He has taken up an object 



40 NATVRE OF EARNESTNESS. 

in reference to which., if he succeed but in a single instance, 
he will have achieved a triumph which will endure infinite 
ages after the proudest monuments of human genius have 
perished like a garland in the conflagration of the 
world. 

I have spoken of the salvation of souls as the great 
object of the ministerial office ; this is a generic phrase, 
including as its species the awakening of the unconcerned ; 
the guidance of the inquiring ; the instruction of the unin- 
formed ; and the sanctification, comfort, and progress of 
those who through grace have believed — in short, the whole 
work of grace in the soul. But I now direct the attention 
of my readers to the first of these particulars as the most 
commanding object of ministerial solicitude, I mean the 
conversion of the unregenerate ; and if without an offence 
of the law of modesty I may refer to my own history, 
labor, and success, I would observe that I began my min- 
istry, even as a student, with a strong desire after this 
object ; and long before this, while yet a youth engaged in 
secular concerns, I had been deeply susceptible of the 
power of an awakening style of preaching, which was 
strengthened by the perusal of the rousing sermons of Dr. 
Davies,* of New Jersey. From that time to the present 
I have made the conversion of the impenitent the great 
end of my ministry, and I have had my reward. I have 
been sustained in this course by the remarks of Baxter in 

* I wish these discourses were better known and more imitated by 
our young ministers. They are admirable specimens, formed upon the 
model of Baxter, of persuasive, hortatory and impressive preaching. 
It is such preaching we want. In these striking discourses may be 
seen what I mean by earnest preaching. They are by no means scarce, 
and I would advise my younger brethren to buy and read them, 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 41 

his " Reformed Pastor," a long extract from which I will 
now furnish. 

" We must labor in a special manner for the conversion 
of the unconverted. 

" The work of conversion is the great thing we must 
drive at ; after this we must labor with all our might. 
Alas ! the misery of the unconverted is so great that it 
calleth loudest to us for compassion. If a truly converted 
sinner do fall, it will be but into sin which will be pardoned, 
and he is not in that hazard of damnation by it as others 
are. Not but that God hateth their sins as well as others, 
or that he will bring them to heaven, let them live ever so 
wickedly ; but the spirit that is within tlrem will not suffer 
them to live wickedly, nor to sin as the ungodly do. But 
with the unconverted it is far otherwise. They 'are in the 
gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity,' and have 
yet no part nor fellowship in the pardon of their sins, or 
the hope of glory. We have therefore a work of greater 
necessity to do for them, even ' to open their eyes, and to 
turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of 
Satan unto God ; that they may receive forgiveness of sins, 
and an inheritance among them which are sanctified. ' He 
that seeth one man sick of a mortal disease, and another 
only pained with the tooth-ache, will be moved more to 
compassionate the former than the latter ; and will surely 
make more haste to help him, though he were a stranger 
and the other a brother or a son. It is so sad a case to 
see men in a state of damnation, wherein, if they should 
die, they are lost forever, that methinks we should not be 
able to let them alone, either in public or private, whatever 
other work we have to do. I confess I am frequently 
forced to neglect that which should tend to the further 
increase of knowledge in the godly, because of the lament- 



42 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

able necessity of the unconverted. Who is able to talk of 
controversies or of nice, unnecessary points, or even of 
truths of a lower degree of necessity, how excellent soever, 
while he seeth a company of ignorant, carnal, miserable 
sinners before his eyes, who must be changed or damned ? 
Me thinks I even see them entering upon their final woe ! 
Methinks I hear them crying out for help — for speediest 
help ! Their misery speaks the louder, because they have 
not hearts to ask for help themselves. Many a time have 
I known that I had some hearers of higher fancies, that 
looked for rarities, and were addicted to despise the minis- 
try, if I told them not something more than ordinary ; and 
yet I could not find in my heart to turn from the necessi- 
ties of the impenitent, for the humoring of them ; nor 
even to leave speaking to miserable sinners for their salva- 
tion, in order to speak so much as should otherwise be 
done to weak saints, for their confirmation and increase in 
grace. Methinks as Paul's ' spirit was stirred within him,' 
when he saw 'the Athenians wholly given to idolatry/ so 
it should cast us into one of his paroxysms, to see so many 
men in the greatest danger of being everlastingly undone. 
Methinks, if by faith we did indeed look upon them as 
within a step of hell, it would more effectually untie our 
tongues, than Croesus' danger did his son's. He that will 
let a sinner go down to hell for want of speaking to him, 
doth set less by souls than did the Redeemer of souls ; 
and less by his neighbor than common charity will allow 
him to by his greatest enemy. therefore, brethren, 
whomsoever you neglect, neglect not the most miserable ! 
Whatever you pass over, forget not poor souls that are 
Under the condemnation and curse of the law, and who 
may look every hour for the infernal execution, if a speedy 
change do noi prevent it. call after the impenitent, and 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 43 

ply this great work of converting souls, whatever else you 
leave undone." 

" These powerful and impressive observations/' sa}^s the 
editor of Baxter, " we cannot too earnestly recommend to 
the attention of ministers. We have no hesitation in say- 
ing that the most of preachers whom we have known, were 
essentially defective in the grand and primary object of 
the Christian ministry, — laboring for the conversion of 
souls. From the general strain of some men's preaching, 
one would almost be ready to conclude that there were no 
sinners in their congregations to be converted. In deter- 
mining the proportion of attention which a minister should 
pay to particular classes of his congregation, the number 
of each class, and the necessities of their case, are unques- 
tionably the principal considerations which should weigh 
with him. Now in all our congregations we have reason 
to fear the unconverted constitute by far the majority.; — 
their situation is peculiarly pitiable ; their opportunities of 
salvation will soon be forever over; their danger is not 
only very great, but very imminent ; they are not secure 
from everlasting misery, even for a single moment. Surely 
then the unconverted' demand by far the largest share of 
the Christian minister's attention, and yet from many they 
receive but a very small share of attention — their case, 
when noticed at all, is noticed only, as it were, by the bye. 
This no doubt is a principal cause that among us there are 
so few conversions by the preaching of the word, and 
especially in the congregations of particular ministers. 
We feel this subject to be of such transcendent importance 
that we trust we shall be excused for here introducing a 
quotation connected with it, from another work of our 
author, which has been introduced into the series of ' Select 
Christian Au:hors.' " 



ii NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

" It is not," says he, in his " Mischiefs of Self-Igno- 
rance," " a general dull discourse, or critical observations 
upon words, or the subtile decision of some nice and curious 
questions of the schools ; nor is it a neat and well-composed 
speech, about some other distant matters, that is likely to 
acquaint a sinner with himself. How many sermons may 
we hear that are ''e veiled at some mark or other which is 
very far from the hearers' hearts, and therefore are never 
likely to convince them, or open and convert them ? And 
if our congregations were in such a case as that they 
needed no closer quickening work, such preaching might 
be borne with and commended. But when so many usually 
sit before us that must shortly die, and yet ^,re unprepared 
for death ; and that are condemned by the law of God, 
and must be pardoned, or finally condemned ; that must 
be saved from their sins that they may be saved from ever- 
lasting misery — I think it is time for us to talk to them of 
such things as most concern them, and that in such a man- 
ner as may most effectually convince, awaken, and change 
them. 

" A man that is ready to be drowned is not at leisure for 
a song or a dance ; and a man that is ready to be hanged, 
methinks should not find himself at leisure to hear a man 
show his wit and reading only, if not his folly and malice, 
against a life of holiness. Nor should you think that suit- 
able to such men's case that doth not evidently tend to 
save them. But, alas ! how often have we heard such 
sermons as tend more to diversion than direction ; to fill 
their minds with other matters, and find them something 
else to think of, lest they should study themselves, and 
know their misery ! A preacher that seems to speak re- 
ligiously, by a dry, sapless discourse, that is called a ser- 
mon, may more plausibly and easily ruin him. And his 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 45 

conscience will more quietly suffer him to he taken off 
the necessary care of his salvation, by something that is 
like it, and pretends to do the work as well, than by the 
grosser avocations or the scorn of fools. And he will be 
more tamely turned from religion by something that is 
called religion, and which he hopes may serve the turn, 
than by open wickedness, or impious defiance of God and 
reason. But how often do we hear sermons applauded, 
which force us, in compassion to men's souls, to think, 
' Oh what is all this to the opening of a sinner's heart unto 
himself, and showing him his unregenerate state v What 
is this to the conviction of a self-deluding soui, that is 
passing into hell, with the confident expectation of heav- 
en ? What is this to show men their undone condition, 
and the absolute necessity of Christ, and of renewing 
grace ? What is in this to lead men up from earth to heav- 
en, and to acquaint them with the unseen world, and to 
help them to the life of faith and love, and to the mortify- 
ing and pardon of their sins !' How little skill have many 
miserable preachers in the searching of the heart, and 
helping men to know themselves, whether Christ be in 
them, or whether they be reprobates ! And how little 
care and diligence is used by them, to call men to the 
trial, and help them in the examining and judging of them- 
selves, as if it were a work of no necessity. ' They have 
healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, say- 
ing, Peace, peace, when there is no peace/ saitli the 
Lord." 

Oh what preachers we should be, could we drink in the 
spirit of these powerful passages ! May God impress 
them on our hearts, and lead us to mould our discourses 
after this fashion. I would, however, by no means wish 
to be thought unmindful of the importance of building up 



46 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

the believer on his holy faith. Not only must the children 
of the redeemed family be born, but they must also be 
fed, watched, guided, and nourished up to manhood. The 
growth in grace and in knowledge of the heirs of immor- 
tality must be an object of deep solicitude with the faithful 
pastor. His children in the faith arc not glorified, as soon 
as converted, but are carried through a probation, and often 
a long one, of conflict, trial, and temptation ; and it is 
his business, by the instrumentality of the truth, deeply 
searched, carefully expounded, and appropriately applied, 
to conduct them through the perplexities and the dangers 
of the divine life. Hence, therefore, it is th^ duty of the 
minister, not to be always dwelling on first principles, nor 
teaching the mere alphabet of Bible knowledge, but to 
lead his people " on unto perfection ;" yet still, amidst all 
this, he is never to forget that by far the greater number 
of those who are before him do not experimentally know 
these first principles, and have not learnt even this alpha- 
bet of practical piety. I once had a member of my church, 
who had been brought out of the literary world to a deep, 
experimental knowledge of divine truth. She was a woman 
of uncommonly fine and tasteful mind. After her conver- 
sion she dwelt for a season in London ; and on her return 
from the metropolis, in giving an account of the various 
preachers she had heard, expressed her surprise and re- 
gret that their sermons, however excellent, seemed to be 
addressed, almost exclusively, to true believers, as if they 
took it for granted that their congregations were composed 
wholly of such, and contained none who were dead in tres- 
passes and sins. And i know a devoted and consistent 
Christian, who, upon leaving a minister whom he had 
heard for several years, declared he had scarcely ever 
heard one thoroughly practical sermon from him during the 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 47 

whole time : there had been much doctrinal statement, 
much theological science, much religious comfort ; but no 
vivid and pungent appeals either to saints or sinners. No 
wonder he knew of no conversions there: and yet this 
preacher is not an Antinomian. 

Secondly. Earnestness implies that the subject has not 
only been selected, but that it has taken full possession of the 
mind, and has kindled towards it an intense desire of the 
heart. 

It is something more than the correctness of theory, and 
the deductions of logic ; more than the cool calculation of 
the judgment, and the play of the imagination — earnest- 
ness means that the understanding, having selected and 
appreciated its object, has pressed all the faculties of both 
mind and body into its pursuit. It urges the soul onward 
in its career of action at such a speed, that it is set on fire 
by the velocity of its own motion. The object of an earn- 
est man is never, for any long period of time, absent from 
his thoughts. He meditates on it by day, and dreams of 
it by night : it meets him in his solitary walks as some 
bright vision which he loves to contemplate, and it comes 
over him in company with such power, that he cannot 
avoid making it the topic of his conversation, till he ap- 
pears in the eyes of those who have no sympathy with him 
in the light of an enthusiast. 

Foster, in his "Essay on Decision of Character," has 
alluded to Howard as supplying a fine illustration of this 
mental quality. I furnish one extract bearing more di- 
rectly than perhaps any other on our present theme. It 
relates to the singular fact that this great philanthropist 
turned not a moment from his course, when traversing 
those scenes most calculated to awaken curiosity, and to 
enkindle enthusiasm bj the associations of ancient glory 



48 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

with which they are connected — even Rome itself. " The 
importance of his object held his faculties in a stale of ex- 
citement which was too rigid to be affected by lighter 
interests, and on which, therefore, the beauties of nature 
and art had no power : like the invisible spirits who fulfil 
their commission of philanthropy among mortals, and care 
not about pictures, statues, and sumptuous buildings. It 
implied an inconceivable severity of conviction that he had 
one thing to do; and that he who would do some great 
thing in this short life must apply himself to the work with 
such a concentration of his forces as, to idle spectators, 
who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity. It 
was thus he made the trial, so seldom made, what is the 
utmost effect which may be granted to the last possible 
effort of a human agent ; and therefore what he did not 
accomplish, he might conclude to be placed beyond the 
sphere of mortal activity, and calmly leave to the disposal 
of Omnipotence." 

There, again, is the representation of the really and 
intensely earnest minister of Jesus Christ, and of the man- 
ner in which he regards the object of his ministry, the sal- 
vation of immortal souls. He has drunk in the inspiration 
of those inexpressibly sublime and solemn words, so of- 
ten already quoted, " They watch for your souls as they 
that must give account, that they may do it with joy and 
not with grief." This declaration has come over him like 
a spell, from the fascination of which he neither tries nor 
wishes to escape. Whether seated in his chair in his study ; 
or carrying on the exercises of devotion in the closet ; or 
preaching the gospel in the pulpit ; or enjoying the pleas- 
ures of Christian friendship in the social circle ; or recreat- 
ing his energies amidst the beauties of creation ; the words 
of Solomon stand out conspicuously before his mind's eye, 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 49 

" He tli at winneth souls is wise ;" while, ever and anon, 
the thunder of Christ's awful inquiry comes pealing over 
his ear, " What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole 
world, and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in 
exchange for his soul ?" To be useful in converting souls 
is his constant and practical aim : with a view to which, 
his texts are chosen, his sermons are composed and deliv- 
ered, and his language, figures, and illustrations are select- 
ed. That word usefulness has the same meaning in his 
ear, the same power over his soul, as the word " victory " 
has over the mind of the hero : and the preparation and 
delivery of the most eloquent sermons, with all the plaudits 
that follow them, will no more satisfy his ambition, than 
the skilful evolutions, the military splendor, and the mar- 
tial music of a field day, however they may be admired by 
the multitudinous spectators, will content the desires ot 
the patriot warrior who burns to defeat his country's foe 
upon the field of battle, and to rescue the liberties of his 
enslaved nation from the grasp of a tyrant. By the ear- 
nest minister, the salvation of souls is souo-ht with the obli- 
gation of a principle, and the ardor of a passion. It is 
impressed upon his whole character, and is inseparable 
from his conduct. It distinguishes him among, and from, 
many of his brethren. When the congregations, either at 
home or abroad, go to hear him, they know what to ex- 
pect, and consequently do not look for the flowers of 
rhetoric, but for the fruit of the tree of life ; not for a dry 
crust of philosophy, not for a meatless, marrowless bone 
of criticism, but for the bread which cometh down from 
heaven ; not for a display of religious fire-works, splendid 
but useless, but for the holding up of the torch of eternal 
truth in all its clear shining light to guide the wandering 
and benighted souls to the refuge of the lost. He has, by 



50 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS 

the usual style of his pulpit discourses, a j j'x / ;, ' is 
diameter as a useful preacher, and those .v'io go to hear 
him, would as soon expect to listen to a mere poetical or 
classical effusion, instead of directions for health, from a 
physician whom they consulted in a time of sickness, as 
such matters from this servant of Christ, instead of a ser- 
mon calculated and designed to do good to their souls. 
He could possibly be eloquent, profound, or learned, and 
when these things can aid him in securing his one great 
end, he does not scruple to employ them. His aim is at 
the heart and conscience, and if the poetic, the literary, 
the logical, the scientific, will at any time so polish and 
plume the shaft, or sharpen the point of the arrow, he will 
not reject them, but will avail himself of their legitimate 
uses, that he may the more certainly hit the mark. This 
is his motto, " If by any means I might save some." 

But this touches a third thing implied in genuine ear- 
nestness, and that is the studious invention and diligent use 
of all appropriate means to accomplish the selected object. 
An earnest man is the last to be satisfied with mere for- 
mality, routine, and prescription. He will often survey his 
object, his means, and his instruments ; will look back upon 
the past to review his course, to examine his failure, and 
success, with the causes of each ; to learn what to do, and 
what to avoid for the future. His inquiry will often be, 
What next? What more? What better? And as the 
result of all this, new experiments will be tried, new plans 
will be laid, and new courses will be pursued. With an 
inextinguishable ardor, and with a resolute fixedness of 
purpose, he exclaims " I must succeed — How ?" 

And shall we ministers possess nothing of this, if we 
are in earnest for the salvation of souls ? Shall dull uni- 
formity, stiff formality; everlasting repetitions, and rigid 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 51 

routine satisfy us ? Shall we never institute the inquiry, 
" Why have I not succeeded better in my ministry ? How 
is it that my congregation is not larger, and my church 
more rapidly increasing ? In what way can I account for 
it, that the truth as it is in Jesus, which I believe I preach, 
is not more influential, and the doctrine of the cross is not 
as it was intended to be, the power of God unto the sal- 
vation of souls ? Why do 1 not more frequently hear 
addressed to me, by those who are constantly under my 
ministry, the anxious inquiry, ' What shall I do to be saved V 
I am not wanting, as far as I know, in the regular discharge 
of my ordinary duties, and yet I gather little fruit of my 
labors, and have to utter continually the prophet's com- 
plaint, ' Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the 
arm of the Lord revealed ?' ,: Do we indeed indulge in 
such complaints ? Have we earnestness enough to pour 
forth such lamentations ? Or is it of little consequence to 
us, provided we get our stipend, keep up the congregation 
to its usual si'ze, and maintain the tranquillity of the church, 
whether the ends of the ministry are accomplished or not ? 
Are we ever seen by God's omniscient eye pacing our study 
in deep though tfulness, solemn meditation, and rigorous 
inquisition ; and after an impartial survey of our doings, 
and a sorrowful lamentation that we are doing no more, 
questioning ourselves thus — " Is there no new method to 
be tried, no new scheme to be devised, to increase the 
efficiency of my ministerial and pastoral labors ? Is there 
nothing I can supply, correct, or add ? Is there anything 
particularly wanting in the matter, manner, or method of 
my preaching, or in my course of pastoral attentions ?" 
Surely it might be supposed that such inquiries would be 
often instituted into the results of such a ministry as ours, 



52 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS, 

that seasons would be not ^infrequently set apart, espe- 
cially at the close of the year, for such a purpose. 

Here it may be proper for us to look out of our own 
profession, and ask if the earnest tradesman, soldier, law- 
yer, philosopher, and mechanician, are satisfied to go on as 
they have done, though with ever so little success ? Do 
we not see in all other departments of human action, 
where the mind is really intent on some great object, and 
where success has not been obtained in proportion to the 
labor bestowed, a dissatisfaction with past modes of ac- 
tion, and a determination to try new ones ? And should 
w r e who watch for souls, and labor for immortality, 
be behindhand with them ? In calling for new meth- 
ods, I want no new doctrines ; no new principles ; no 
startling eccentricities ; no wild irregularities ; no vagaries 
of enthusiasm, nor frenzies of the passions ; no, nothing 
but what the most sober judgment and the soundest reason, 
would approve ; — but I do want a more inventive, as well 
as a more fervid zeal in seeking the great end of our min- 
istry. Dull uniformity, and not enthusiasm, is the side on 
which our danger lies. I know very well the contortions 
of an epileptic zeal are to be avoided, but so also is the 
numbness of a paralytic one ; and after all, the former is 
less dangerous to life, and is more easily and frequently 
cured, than the latter. We may, as regards our preaching, 
for instance, examine whether we have not dwelt too little 
on the alarming, or on the attractive themes of revelation ; 
whether we have not clothed our discourses too much with 
the terrors of the Lord, and determine to try the more 
winning forms of love and mercy, or whether we have not 
rendered the gospel powerless by an everlasting repetition 
of it in common-place phraseology ; whether we have not 
been too argumentative, and resolve to be more imagina- 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 53 

tive, practical, and hortatory; whether we have not ad- 
dressed ourselves too exclusively to believers, and deter- 
mine to commence a style of more frequent and pungent 
address to the unconverted ; whether we have not been too 
vague and general in our descriptions of sin, and become 
more specific and discriminating ; whether we have not 
been too neglectful of the young, and begin a regular 
course of sermons to them ; whether we have not had too 
much sameness of topic, and adopt courses of sermons on 
given subjects ; whether we have not been too elaborate 
and abstract in the composition of our discourses, and come 
down to greater simplicity ; whether we have not been too 
careless, and bestow more pains ; whether we have not 
been too doctrinal, and in future make all truth, as it was 
intended to do, to bear upon the heart, conscience, and life. 
Nor must the inquiry stop here. There must be the 
same process of rigid scrutiny instituted as to the labors 
of the pastorate. We must review the proceedings of this 
momentous department, for here also is most ample scope 
for invention as to new plans of action. Perhaps upon 
inquiry we shall find out that we have neglected various 
channels through which our influence mi^ht have been 
poured over the flock committed to our care, and shall dis- 
cover many ways in which we can improve upon our former 
plans in the way of meeting the inquirers after salvation, 
giving our aid to Sunday schools, setting up Bible classes, 
or visiting the flock. What is needed, is an anxious wisV 
to be wanting in nothing that can conduce to our useful- 
ness, a diligent endeavor to make up every deficiency, and 
a mind ever inquisitive after new means and methods of 
doing good. Could we all but adopt the plan of setting 
apart a day at the close of every year for solemn exami- 
nation into our ministerial and pastoral doings, for the pur- 



54 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

pose of ascertaining our defects and neglects, to see in what 
we could improve, to humble ourselves before God for the 
past, and to lay down new rules for the future, we should 
all be more abundantly useful than we are. And does not 
earnestness require all this ? Can we pretend to it if we 
do not ? The idea of a minister's going on from year to 
year with either little success, or none at all, and yet never 
pausing to inquire how this comes to pass, or what can 
be done to increase his efficiency, is so utterly repugnant 
to all proper notions of devotedness, that we are obliged 
to conclude that the views of such a man of the design 
of his office are radically and essentially defective. 
. Fourthly. Earnestness implies a purpose and power of 
subordinating everything it me£ts with, selects, or engages 
in, to the accomplishment of its one great object. 

An earnest man has much sagacity in discerning objects, 
even at a distance, that are favorable to his purpose; 
much power in seizing them as they approach ; and much 
tact in pressing them into his service, and weaving them 
into his schemes. He avoids at the same time the folly of 
letting go his main object in the pursuit of lesser ones, 
and of thus converting means into ends. The operations of 
his mind resemble those of a vast machine, in which the 
ruling power subjects to itself the thousand little wheels 
and spindles that are set in motion, and makes them all 
accomplish the purpose for which the engine has been set 
up. Or the current of his thought and feeling may be 
compared to the majestic flow of some noble river, which 
receives into its stream, and bears forward in its course, 
the numerous rivulets by which its waters are swollen, and 
its power increased. So acts the earnest minister. There 
are various matters which he may attend to, and ought not 
to neglect, which may with great propriety be considered 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 55 

ns means, but which cannot be viewed as the end of his 
high and holy calling. 

The first of these which I mention is learning, and 
indeed, general knowledge of all kinds. Literature, sci- 
ence, and philosophy, however excellent in themselves, and 
however subservient they may be rendered as means to 
accomplish the great ends of the ministerial office, must 
never, I repeat, be exalted into the place of the ends them- 
selves. Viewed as subordinate and subsidiary, they cannot 
be too highly valued, nor too diligently sought. There is 
not any kind of knowledge, nor any degree of it, which 
may not be made tributary to the ends of gospel ministra- 
tions. All other things being equal, he is likely to be the 
most useful preacher, who is the most learned one. There 
is nothing, there can be nothing, in literature and science, 
which of themselves can be injurious to a minister of 
Christ : the pride and vanity which produce such a result 
are but as those weeds which nourish in a shallow and 
sandy soil, but which wither and die in rich, deep loam. 
The man who decries learning as mischievous per se to the 
ministry, is fit only to be torch-bearer to another -Caliph 
Omar, and to act the part of an incendiary to all the libra- 
ries of the world. A minister may have too little piety, 
too little solicitude for the salvation of souls, too little de- 
votedness, too little care to render his acquisitions subser- 
vient to the ends of his vocation, but he can never have too 
much knowledge. 

"Perhaps the best answer that can be given to those 
inconsiderate Christians who say that religion needs not 
such foreign and meretricious aids as human learning, is 
tlvt of South, — ' If God hath no need of our learning, he 
can have still less of your ignorance/ In the spiritual 
temple, as wel. as in the ark of the covenant, there is room 



56 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

not only for those humbler gifts, the skins and hair cloth, 
but also for the gold and silver of human learning : and 
even the sciences themselves, daughters as they are of the 
uncreated wisdom, may receive consecration from seraphic 
piety, and be made priestesses of the Most High, by the 
very service in which we employ them." How beautiful 
is the following language of Dr. Wiseman, and how correct 
the sentiment which it clothes and adorns : " You all, I 
doubt not, have often admired those exquisite paintings in 
the ceilings of the Borgia apartments of the Vatican, 
wherein the sciences are represented as holding their sep- 
arate courts ; each enthroned upon a stately chair, with 
features and mien of the most noble and dignified beauty, 
surrounded by the emblems and most distinguished repre- 
sentatives of its power on earth, and seeming to claim 
homage from all that gaze upon it. And judge what 
would have been the painter's conception, and to what a 
sublimity of expression he would have risen, had it been 
his task to represent the noblest of all sciences, our divine 
religion, enthroned, as ever becomes her, to receive the 
fealty and worship of these her handmaids. For if, as 
hath been proved, they are but ministers to her superior 
rule, and are intended to furnish the evidences of her 
authority, how much above theirs must be the comeliness 
and grace, and majesty and holiness, with which she must 
be arra} 7 ed ! And what honor and dignity must be con- 
ferred on him who feels himself deputed to bear the tribute 
of these fair vassals ; and how must his admiration of their 
graces be enhanced, by finding himself brought so near 
her presence."** 

* Dr. Wiseman's " Lectures on the Connection between Science 
and Revealed Religion." Vol. II., p, 317. 



.NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 57 

Tin's splendid passage expresses what I would urgently 
enforce, that literature and science may be subservient, but 
must be only subservient, to the ends of the ministerial 
office. 

Having thus quoted a passage from a Roman Catholic 
author, let me subjoin to it another from a Protestant, of 
a different kind indeed, but by no means inharmonious 
with it. "0 my brethren," says the amiable and pious 
Doddridge, in his incomparable sermon on " The Evil and 
Danger of Neglecting Souls," " let us consider how fast 
we are posting through this dying life, w T hich God has 
assigned to us, in which we are to manage concerns of infi- 
nite moment ; how fast we are passing on to the immediate 
presence of our Lord, to give up our account to him. You 
must judge for yourselves, but permit me to say for my 
own part, I would not for ten thousand worlds be that 
man, who when God shall ask him at last how he has em- 
ployed most of his time, while he continued a minister of 
his church, and had the care of souls, shall be obliged to 
reply, ' Lord, I have restored many corrupted passages in 
the classics, and illustrated many which were before ob- 
scure ; I have cleared up many intricacies in chronology 
or geography ; I have solved many perplexed cases in 
algebra ; I have refined on astronomical calculations, and 
left behind me many sheets on these curious and difficult 
subjects ; and these are the employments in which my life 
has been worn out, while preparations for the pulpit, and 
ministrations in it, did not demand my more immediate 
attendance.' Oh sirs, as for the waters that are drawn 
from these springs, how sweetly soever they may taste to 
a curious mind that thirsts after them, or to an ambitious 
mind that thirsts for the applause they sometimes procure, 
I fear there is too often reason to pour them out before the 

3* 



58 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

Lord r , with rivers of penitential tears, as the blood of souls 
which have been forgotten, whilst these trifles have been 
remembered and pursued." 

This is the language of a scholar, a critic, and a man of 
varied knowledge ; but whose piety as a Christian, and 
whose devotedness as a minister, were equal to his other 
attainments. In a foot-note to this admirable discourse, 
which we ministers should do well to read once a month, 
is a quotation from a sermon of a Scottish minister, 
preached before the Synod of Glasgow, which also I may 
with propriety introduce here : — " A just sense of the re- 
lation we stand in to our flocks, and a genuine feeling of 
that affection which is due to them, will not allow us to 
hesitate one moment, whether that part of our time is most 
worthily employed, which is taken up in doing real offices 
of friendship among them, or that part of it which is spent 
in perusing the finest writings of the greatest genius that 
ever appeared in our world, or in polishing any little com- 
positions of our own. Is the arranging of words, the 
beautifying of language, or even storing our own minds 
with the divinest sentiments, an employment of equal dig- 
nity and importance in itself, or equally pleasing in reflec- 
tion, with that of composing differences or extinguishing 
animosities, searching out modest and indigent merit, and 
relieving it, comforting a melancholy heart, giving counsel 
to a perplexed mind, suspending pain by our presence and 
sympathy, suggesting to an unfurnished mind proper ma- 
terials for meditation in the time of distress, or laying hold 
of a favorable opportunity of conveying valuable instruc- 
tion and religious impressions to a mind little susceptible 
of them on other occasions ? There is no need of snying 
anything in confirmation of this : it was the glorious char- 
acter of Jesus, that he wen about doing good/' 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 59 

It might be admitted, and shall be conceded, that we 
live in an age when, to carry out the main purpose of 
the Christian ministry, and to render it efficient for the 
salvation of souls, there requires a higher standard of min- 
isterial qualifications, and larger acquirements of general 
knowledge, than at some former periods. 

It will, I hope, be clearly seen from all this, that I am 
not decrying education, or learning, or the greatest dili- 
gence in ministers for the acquisition of knowledge ; quite 
the contrary ; but I am enforcing with all the earnestness 
I can command, the indispensable necessity of rendering 
all acquirements subordinate to the great work of saving 
souls. Learning, as an ultimate object and for its own 
sake, is infinitely below the ambition of a holy and de- 
voted servant of Christ; but learning employed to invigo- 
rate the intellect, to enrich the imagination, to cultivate the 
taste, to give power to thought, and variety to illustration ; 
to add to the skill and energy with which we wield the 
weapons of our warfare, is in some cases indispensable, and 
in all invaluable. Unhappily it is not uncommon for those 
who have made large acquisitions in varied learning, and 
acquired a scientific, philosophic or literary taste, to yield 
to the seductions of the objects of their pursuits, and to 
allow themselves to be led astray from the simplicity that 
is in Christ Jesus. If there is one man to be admired, en- 
vied, and imitated above all others, it is he who has bap- 
tized large classic and scientific acquirements at the font 
of Christianity, — has surrendered them at the foot of the 
cross, and gathered them up into the nerve of his strength, 
as a preacher of the gospel. To hear such a man chas- 
tening and guiding, but not checking or freezing the gush- 
ing utterances of a full heart, by the rules of genuine 



60 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

eloquence ; and warming and sanctifying the finest speci- 
mens of rhetoric by the glow of a soul on fire with tb- 
passion of love to God and souls; to see the genius of 
Tully and Demosthenes clothing themselves with the 
mantle of Paul, Peter, and John, and under the constrain- 
ing love of Christ, employing all its resources of diction 
and of metaphor, to persuade men to be reconciled to 
God, — is an object of surpassing interest : to such preach- 
ers v/e can almost fancy that not only men. but angels, 
must listen with delight. 

There is, however, too much truth in the following re- 
marks of Dr. Vaughan : " The effect of learning and of 
elegant scholarship, in the modern pulpit, has commonly 
been to render men incapable of producing impressions of 
this nature in any degree. In the case of such preachers, 
neither the diction they use, nor the mould into which 
they cast their expressions and sentences, nor the compar- 
isons they introduce, nor anything belonging to their 
rhetoric, has been an object of study with a view to its 
fitness to secure attention, and to move the thoughts and 
passions of such assemblies as are generally convened by 
the preacher — assemblies made up from the popular, much 
more than from the thoroughly educated classes of society. 
The great object of this class of preachers has been to 
acquit themselves learnedly, or to acquit themselves ele- 
gantly. It is grievous to witness the mischiefs which have 
resulted from this conventionalism in pulpit taste. If our 
pulpit lessons must be veiled in the language of a particu- 
lar kind of scholarship, then the people generally, and even 
men of good natural parts, who have not been initiated 
into that sholarship, will fail to perceive our meaning, and 
will begin, as the consequence, to cast about for some bet- 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. Gl 

ter employment than listening to the utterance sf our 
unknown tongue."* 

I go on now to mention another qualification for the 
sacred office, and which the earnest minister will anxiously 
cultivate with a view to the great object of his life and 
labors, and to which I advance with a praying mind, an 
anxious heart, and a trembling hand, ardently desirous to 
set it forth in such manner as shall secure for it the 
attention which its importance demands ; I mean personal 
religion. We are weak in the pulpit, because we are 
weak in the closet. An earnest man will not only train 
his mind to understand his object, and draw around him 
the resources of ways and means for. its accomplishment, 
but will discipline his heart ; for there, within, is the spring 
of his energies, the seat of impulse, and the source of 
power. If the heart beat feebly, the whole circulation 
must be sluggish, and the frame inert. So is it with us 
ministers : our own personal religion is the mainspring of 
all our power in the pulpit. We are feeble as preachers, 
because we are feeble as Christians. Whatever other de- 
ficiencies we have, the chief of all lies in the heart. The 
apostle said, " We believe and therefore speak." We not 
only speak what we believe, but as we believe ; if the faith 
be weak, so will be the utterance. In another place the 
same inspired writer said, " Knowing the terrors of the 
Lord, we persuade men." It was when standing as amidst 
the solemnities of the last judgment, that apostles besought 
men to be reconciled to God. The flame of zeal which in 
their ministrations rose to such a height and intensity as to 
subject them to the charge of insanity, is thus accounted 

* Modern Pulpit, pp. 23, 24. 



62 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

for, "The Iovb of Christ constraineth us." We have too 
much forgotten that the fount of eloquence is in the heart ; 
and that it is feeling which gives to words and thoughts 
their power. An unrenewed man, or one with a lukewarm 
piety, may preach elaborate sermons upon orthodox doc- 
trines ; but what are they for power and efficiency, when 
compared with those of the preacher, who feels as well as 
glories in the cross, but as the splendid coruscations of 
the aurora borealis to the warm and vivifying rays of the 
sun ? 

The Christian minister sustains a double relation, and 
has a double duty to perform ; he is a preacher to the 
world, and a pastor to the church, and it is impossible he 
can fulfil, or be in earnest to fulfil, the obligations he is 
under to either, without a large measure of personal god- 
liness. As regards the church which is committed to his 
care, and of which he is made by the Holy Ghost the 
spiritual overseer, he has not only to increase their knowl- 
edge, but their holiness, their love, and their spirituality; 
to aid them in performing all the branches of their duty, 
and in cultivating all the graces of their sanctification. 
And what is the, present spiritual condition of the great 
bulk of the professors of religion ? Amidst much that is 
cheering, there is, on the other hand, much that is dis- 
couraging and distressing to the more pious observer. 
We behold a strange combination of zeal and worldly- 
mindedness ; great acidity for the extension of religion in 
the earth, united with lamentable indifference to the state 
of religion in the soul ; in short, apparent vigor in the 
extremities, with a growing torpor at the heart. Multi- 
tudes are substituting zeal for piety, liberality for mortifi- 
cation, and a social for a personal religion. No careful 
reader of the New Testament, and observer of the present 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. G3 

state of the ihurch, can fail to be convinced, one should 
think, that what is now wanting is a high spirituality. 
The Christian profession is sinking in its tone of piety ; 
the line of separation between the church and the world 
becomes less and less perceptible ; and the character of 
genuine Christianity, as expounded from pulpits and de- 
lineated in books, has too rare a counterpart in the lives 
and spirit of its professors. 

How r is this to be remedied, and by what means is the 
spirit of piety to be revived ? May we not ask a previous 
question — How came this spirit of slumber over the 
church ? Was it not from the pulpit ? And if a revival 
take place in the former, must it not begin in the latter ? 
Is the ministry of the present day in that state of earnest 
piety which is likely to originate and sustain an earnest 
style of preaching, and to revive the lukewarmness of 
their flocks ? I do not mean for a moment to insinuate 
that the ministers of the present day among the Dissenters, 
or Methodists, or the evangelical clergy of the Church of 
England, are characterized by immorality, or even a want 
of substantial holiness ; or that they would suffer, as 
regards their piety, in comparison with those of some 
other periods of the history of their denominations : but 
what I am compelled to believe, and what I now express, 
is that our deficiencies are great as compared not only 
r.vith what is always required of us, but is especially re- 
quired by the circumstances of the times in which we live. 
Amidst the eager pursuits of commerce ; the elegancies 
and soft indulgences of an age of growing refinement ; the 
high cultivation of the intellect, and the contests of politics, 
the church needs a strong and high barrier to keep out the 
encroachment of tides so adverse to its prosperity, and 
needs equally a dam to keep in its spiritual feeling. And 



64 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

where shall we find this, if not in the pulpit ? Ii is not in 
the nature of things to be expected that the spiritua char- 
acter of the church should ever be superior to that of the 
ministry ; and it is perfectly consistent with what we know 
of human nature to expect that it will always hold itself 
excused for being inferior. It will not tread a path which 
its spiritual guides are slow to pursue ; and will deem it 
an affectation of sanctity and presumptuous ambition to 
attempt to advance beyond them. How else than by 
believing in a deficiency of our piety can we account for 
the fact of a diminished efficiency in our ministry ? 

I cannot resist the temptation of giving here a long ex- 
tract from that beautiful tract entitled " A Revived Minis- 
try our only hope for a Revived Church ;" a tract so 
eminently excellent, and so adapted to promote the end of 
the pious and accomplished writer, that it is a proof that 
we have little wish to be raised to higher attainments in 
piety, that such a heart-searching, soul-reviving production 
has yet reached only a second edition.* 

"And for such a revived ministry there would be the 
most hopeful preparation of mind. The object to be 
aimed at would be distinctly conceived ; it would be loved 
and cherished as the noblest to which a redeemed being 
can consecrate himself; and there would be a readiness to 
yield everything to the urgency and grandeur of its claims, 
together with the simplicity and guilelessness of intention^ 
which would mightily aid the judgment in seeing its best 
way to the best methods of achieving it. In such circum- 
stances, all the distracting influences arising from indistinct 



* A pious clergyman of this town was so impi essed with the beauty, 
fidelity, and earnestness of this tract, that he purchased a hundred 
copies for distribution among his brethren, 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 65 

views, a divided heart, and infirmity of purpose, would be 
withdrawn, and leave the minister of Christ free to take a 
decided and energetic course. The subjection of the 
church and the world to the dominion of the truth, in a 
pure heart and holy life, would be ever present to his 
mind as the sole and sublime end of his ministry ; and, 
drawing after it the full tide of his sympathies, and per- 
mitting no diversion of his strength to any inferior object, 
it would command all his powers, and dispossess him of 
every wish but that of living and dying for it. And that 
moment would be the dawn of an era of prosperity. 

" Everything which he did would be enlivened by the 
presence of a warmer and holier zeal : but it would be the 
public administration of divine truth, in the ordinance of 
preaching, in which the stronger and healthier pulsations 
of spiritual life would be most signally displayed, and from 
which the largest results might be expected. In this he 
would be prepared for acting a new part. Himself saved 
and eminently sanctified, as well as possessed of the whole 
treasury of sacred knowledge in the inspired volume, he 
would be well versed in the respective truths best calcu- 
lated for awakening the unconverted, and promoting the 
highest sanctification of the church, and administer them 
with improved wisdom and force. The wretchedness of 
the soul as guilty, depraved, and hastening to the judg- 
ment-seat ; the blessedness of arresting it in its downward 
course, and of exalting it once more to the glory of the 
Divine image and favor ; the ample means provided for all 
this in the mediation of Christ ; the experience of their 
efficacy in himself, and the conviction of their undiminished 
power to do as much for others ; the rapid flight of time 
and the possibility of all the mercy overshadowing that 
hour being trifled with and lost forever, — these thrill his 



66 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

soul with mingled commiseration, hope, and fer.r, and urge 
him to improve to the utmost the fleeting opportunity of 
snatching sinners from perdition, and adding to the bright- 
ness of the Redeemer's crown. How well chosen is his 
theme ! no matter of curious speculation, but some one or 
more of the solemn verities which concern the instant faith ! 
and obedience of every hearer, and bring life or death, as 
accepted or rejected. Away with those artificial rules 
which some have prescribed, as if to prepare a sermon 
were something like composing an epic ! He has a truth 
to enforce, a moral effect to produce, and the sense of its 
unutterable importance brings to bear upon it all the re- 
sources of a judicious, intelligent, and impassioned mind. 
Bent on winning souls to God, or quickening them to 
higher obedience, this one desire possesses and inflames 
him, and gives a unity and completeness to his subject, a 
force and compactness of argument, a felicity of speech 
and manner, an ardor and impressiveness of appeal, which 
the art of the rhetorician could never have supplied. He 
feels, moreover, that his strength is in God, and that the 
pleadings of human wisdom and pity never availed apart 
from a higher inspiration. Would there not be more than 
hope from a ministry like this ? In itself so convincing and 
persuasive, rendered still more so by the practical exhibi- 
tion of all the faith, uprightness, benevolence, and spirit- 
uality which it inculcates, looking to God, and owning its 
weakness without his blessing, it would have all the char- 
acteristics from which the susceptibilities of the human 
mind, and the solemn promises of the Almighty, authorize 
the expectation of enlarged success. When was such a 
ministry known to be long in contact with the minds of 
men, without producing the happiest effects ? ' The word 
of the Lord would have free course and be glorified,' con- 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 67 

verts press into the church, and the church he raised to a 
higher renovation. 

" And the minister thus revived would have unwonted 
power in individual intercourse with the members of his 
flock. Living only for their advancement in faith and 
holiness, the warmth and tenderness of his concern for it 
would make him prompt to seize every opportunity of 
promoting it, and give an appropriateness and weight to 
his sayings which a colder and less earnest piety would 
never have dictated ; while the objects of his solicitude, 
feeling the point and force of his words, and impressed 
with his singleness of purpose, and still more with that 
uniform display of the Christian virtues, which was the 
best voucher of his deep sincerity, would find themselves 
drawn along by a combination of influences so pure and 
commanding, that they must tread in the steps of his 
piety, and bend to his hallowed purpose of extending the 
limits of the church, and giving it a holier aspect. Every 
faithful minister can look back upon seasons when, under 
the kindlings of a warmer love and zeal, and a more 
affecting sense of external things, he was animated to 
increased exertion ; and he has found that, not only did 
his preaching fix the attention and touch the souls of his 
hearers more than at other times, but that, when he went 
among them in private, the elevation of his spirit, the 
seriousness of his converse, and the solemnity and unction 
pervading his petitions, produced an evident impression, 
and that he left them with improved feelings and resolves. 
All emotion is contagious, and easily propagates itself to 
other bosoms ; but, beside this, the wakefulness of his 
zeal, and his steadiness of purpose, made him eager to 
extract the highest amount of good from every oppor- 
tunity, stimulated ingenuity, and gave an aptness and 



68 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

charm to all that he said, which fell with happy effect on 
the understanding and the heart. And had the ardor and 
determination of those seasons been permanent, the equa- 
ble and healthy excitement of every day's labor, instead of 
soon relapsing into the feebler sensibility of other times, 
his ministry would, doubtless, have told a different history, 
and been far more richly laden with precious fruit." 

Happy shall I feel if this feeble tribute, not only of the 
recommendation of my pen, but of my heart's gratitude 
for the benefit I have derived from this production, shall 
induce any of my brethren to peruse this precious gift 
which has been offered to them by a writer who veils him- 
self under the modest title of " One of the least among 
the brethren." 

Do we want examples and patterns of eminent and ear- 
nest piety, how richly are they supplied both in number 
and in quality in the pages of our own denominational his- 
tory. Where is the deep, ardent, experimental religion of 
our ancestors, the fathers and founders of Protestant non- 
conformity? What a theologian was Owen when he wrote 
his Exposition of the Hebrews ! What a polemic when he 
penned his controversy with Biddulfii ! What an eccle- 
siastic when he drew up his treatise on Church Govern- 
ment ! But what a Christian when he indulged in his 
" Meditations on the Glory of Christ," and gave us his 
treatise " On Spirituality of Mind and the Mortification of 
Sin !" What a logician and divine was Howe, when he 
produced his "Living Temple;" bat what a Christian 
when, in the shadow of this noble structure of his holy 
genius, he poured out his heart in his work on " Delight- 
ing in God," and " The Blessedness of the Righteous." 
And then think of holy Baxter, who gained repose from 
the labors of polemic strife, and relief from the tortures of 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 69 

the stone, in the believing anticipations of " The Saint's 
Rest." Was their piety the result of their suffering ? 
Then for one I could be almost content to take the latter, 
so thnt I might be possessed of the former. Lead me to 
the spots, I do not say where they trimmed their midnight 
lamp, and continued at their studies till the morning star, 
glittering through their casement, chided them to their 
pillow ; but to those more hallowed scenes where they 
held their nightly vigils, and wrestled with the angel till 
the break of day. Mighty shades of Owen and Baxter; 
Howe and Manton ; Henry and Bates; Goodwin and 
Kye — illustrious and holy men, we thank you for the rich 
legacy you have bequeathed to us in your immortal works ; 
but oh, where has the mantle of your piety fallen ! 

God of our fathers ! be the God 
Of their succeeding race. 

Here then let us begin, where indeed we ought to begin, 
with our own spirits ; for what should be the piety of that 
man on the state of whose heart depends in no small de- 
gree the spiritual condition of a whole Christian commu- 
nity ? If we turn to any department of human action, we 
shall learn that no one can inspire a taste, much less % 
passion, for the object of his own pursuit, who is not him- 
self most powerfully moved by it. It is, as I have said, 
the scintillation of his own zeal flying off from his own 
glowing heart, and falling upon their souls, which kindles 
in them the fire which burns in himself. Lukewarmness 
can excite no ardor, originate no activity, produce no effect : 
it benumbs whatever it touches. If we inquire for the 
sources of energy, the springs of activity, in the most suc- 
cessful ministers of Christ, we shall find that they lay in 
the ardor of their devotion. They were men of prayer 



^0 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

and of faith. They dwelt upon the mount of communion 
with God, from whence they came down like Moses to the 
people, radiant with the glory on which they had them- 
selves been intently gazing. They stationed themselves 
where they could look at things unseen and eternal, and 
came with the stupendous visions* fresh in their view, and 
spoke of them under the impression of what they had just 
seen and heard. They drew their thoughts and made 
their sermons from their minds and from their books, but 
they breathed life and power into them from their hearts, 
and in their closets. Trace either Whitfield or Wesley 
in their career, and you will see how beaten was the road 
between the pulpit and the closet : the grass was not al- 
lowed to grow in that path. This was in great part the 
secret of their power. They were mighty in public, be- 
cause in their retirement they had clothed themselves, so 
to speak, with Omnipotence. The same might be said of 
all others who have attained to eminence as successful 
preachers of the gospel. If then we would see a revival 
of the power of the pulpit, we must see first of all a revi- 
val in the piety of those who occupy it : and when this is 
the case, then " He that is feeble among us shall be as 
David, and the house of David shall be as God, as the 
angel of the Lord before them." 



CHAPTER III. 

NATURE OF EARNESTNESS, CONTINUED, 

AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE MATTER AND MANNER OF PREACHING. 

Fifthly. Earnestness will manifest itself by energetic 
and untiring action in Hie use of those means by which its 
object is accomplished. It does not satisfy itself with con- 
templation, however enraptured ; schemes, however well 
concerted ; wishes, however fervent, or anticipations, how- 
ever lively : but proceeds to vigorous and well-adapted 
exertion. An earnest man must of necessity be an active 
one : he is the opposite and the contrast of an idle dreamer. 
" I see my object," he exclaims ; "it stands out in bold re- 
lief, clearly defined before my eyes, and I will leave no ef- 
fort untried to accomplish it. I have made up my mind 
to labor, self-denial, and fatigue ; and if I do not succeed 
it shall not be for want of determined and continuous 
effort." Such is his resolution, and his practice is like it. 
He is always at work. You know where to find him, and 
how he is employed. He is the very type of diligence. 
Labor is pleasure. No difficulties deter him, no disap- 
pointments dishearten him. The ignorant do not under- 
stand him, the indolent pity him, but the intelligent ad- 



72 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

mire him. There is something in his earnestness com- 
manding, grand ; especially when the object of it is wor- 
thy. 

Apply this to the ministry: there are two means by 
which this accomplishes its end, preaching and the pasto- 
rate. 

In reference to the former, I advert first to the matter 
of our ministrations. And this must consist, of course, of 
those topics which bear most obviously and directly upon 
the areat ends we are seeking to accomplish. Earnestness 
wij] take the nearest and most direct road to its object; 
nor will it be seduced from its path by beautiful prospects 
and pleasant walks, that lie in another direction. " I want 
to ^eacli that point, and I cannot allow myself to be at- 
tracted by scenes, which, however agreeable and appropri- 
ate to others, would, if I stayed or turned to contemplate 
them, only hinder me in my business. " Such is the lan- 
guage of one intent upon success in any given scheme. 
Now what is the end of our office ? The reconciliation of 
sinners to God, and their ultimate and complete salvation, 
when so reconciled. It is easy then to see that the matter 
of our instruction and persuation must be, the ministry of 
reconciliation. Of course it must be our purpose to de- 
clare the whole counsel of God, and to remember " that 
all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profita- 
ble for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction 
in righteousness : that the man of God may be thoroughly 
furnished unto all good works." In the way of exposition 
a minister should go through the greater part of the whole 
Bible, fairly and honestly explaining and enforcing it. But 
since the whole Bible, as explained by the most perfect 
revelation of the New Testament, directly or indirectly 
points to Christ, or may be illustrated and enjoined by con- 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 73 

s\derations suggested by his mission and work, our preach- 
ing should have a decidedly evangelical character. The 
divinity, incarnation, and death of Christ — his atonement 
for sin — his resurrection, ascension, intercession, and medi- 
atorial reign — his spiritual kingdom, and his second com- 
ing ; the offices and work of the Holy Spirit in illuminat- 
ing, regenerating, and sanctifying the human soul ; the 
doctrine of justification by faith, and the new birth ; the 
sovereignty of God in the dispensation of his saving gifts 
— these and their kindred and collateral topics should form, 
so to speak, the staple of our public ministrations and teach- 
ing. It surely must be this which the apostle meant when 
he said, " I determined not to know anything among you 
save Jesus Christ and him crucified." " The Jews require 
a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach 
Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto 
the Greeks foolishness: but unto them which are called, 
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the 
wisdom of God." If there be any meaning in language, 
this must imply that the apostle in his ministry dwelt 
chiefly upon the work of Christ, as the theme of his dis- 
courses. His epistles all sustain this view of his meaning, 
They are all full of this great subject. We may perhaps 
smile at the simple piety of the individual who was at the 
trouble of counting the number of times that the apostle 
mentioned the name of Jesus in all his epistles, but at the 
same time something is to be learnt from the fact that he 
found it to reach between four and five hundred. This 
teaches us how thoroughly Christian, how entirely imbued 
with evangelism, his mind and his writings were. His mo- 
rality was as evangelical as his doctrine, for he enforced all 
the branches of social obligation by motives drawn from 
the cross. His ethics wen all baptized with the spirit of 

1 



74 * NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

the gospel, so that the believer, in reading the writings of 
Paul, has his eye as constantly kept upon the crucified one, 
in the progress of his sanctification, as the sinner's eye is 
turned towards the same object, for his justification. Here 
then was the earnestness of the apostle, one constant, uni- 
form, and undeviating endeavor to save men's souls by the 
truth as it is in Jesus. 

A question now arises whether it is the duty of modern 
preachers to adopt the same method, and whether, inas- 
much as their ends are the same with those of the apostle, 
they are to seek them by the same means. One should 
suppose there can be no rational doubt of this. If the 
apostles were the inspired teachers of Christianity, and 
have given us in their writings a full exhibition of what 
Christianity really is ; and if it is our business to explain 
and enforce their writings ; it seems to follow as a thing of 
course that our teaching as to the matter of our discourses 
must resemble theirs : and will any one pretend that this 
resemblance can be established unless our preaching is 
richly and prevailingly evangelical ? I am aware it is 
sometimes said that the times are altered since the apostles' 
days, and that the state of the world is different from what 
it then was. But is not human nature in all its essential 
elements the same ? Is it not the same in its moral aspect, • 
im potency, and necessities ? Does it not as much need, 
and as much depend upon the gospel scheme, as it did then ? 
Is not the evangelical scheme as accurately adapted to its 
miserable condition as it was then ? Can sin be pardoned 
in any other way than through the atonement of Christ ; 
or the sinner be justified by any other means than faith in 
the Lord our righteousness ; or the depraved heart be re- 
newed and sanctified by any other agency than that of the 
Holy Spirit ? Are not all the motives of evangelical doc- 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 75 

trine as adapted, as powerful, and as efficacious now, as 
they were then ? No alteration of subject then can be 
called for now, to meet the advancing state of society, 
since the gospel is intended and adapted to be God's in- 
strument for the salvation of man, in all ages of the world, 
in all countries, and in all states of society. We reject 
alike the ancient practice of conforming the evangelical 
scheme to the systems of philosophy, and the modern 
Puseyite notion of the progressive development of Chris- 
tian doctrine. To the men who would revive the former, 
we say, " Beware lest any man spoil you through philoso- 
phy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the 
rudiments of the world, and not after Christ :" to the lat- 
ter we say, " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, 
and forever. Be not carried about with divers and strange 
doctrines : for it is a good thing for the heart to be estab- 
lished with grace." It appears to me that something like 
the same attempts are being made in this day to corrupt 
the gospel by superstitious additions on the one hand, and 
by philosophic accommodations on the other, as were car- 
ried on in the early days of Christianity. Our danger lies 
in the latter. 

It should never be forgotten that the time when the 
apostles discharged their ministry was only just after the 
Augustan era of the ancient world. Poetry had recently 
bestowed some of its golden favors on the empire of let- 
ters in the works of Virgil and Horace. The light of 
philosophy, though waning, still shed its lustre on Greece. 
The arts, and their most splendid creations in architecture, 
sculpture, and painting, still lived, though they had ceased 
to grow. It was at such a time, and amidst such scenes, 
the gospel began its course. Apostolic voices were listened 
to by sages and their pupils who basked in the sunshine of 



76 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

Athenian wisdom, and were reverberated in echo from 
temples and statues that had been shaken by the thunders 
of Cicero and Demosthenes ; yet these holy men conceded 
nothing to the demands of philosophy, but held forth the 
cross as the only object they felt they had a right to exhibit. 
They never once conceived such an idea as that they must 
accommodate themselves to the philosophy or the taste of 
the age in which they lived, and the places in which they 
ministered. It is true the philosophy of that day was a 
false one, but it was not known or acknowledged to be such 
at the time. Whether the apostle addressed himself to the 
philosophers on Mars Hill, or to the barbarians in the island 
of Melita ; whether he reasoned with the Jews in their syna- 
gogues, or with the Greeks in the school of Tyrannus ; 
he had but one theme, and that was Christ, and him cru- 
cified. And what right, or what reason, have we for 
deviating from this high and imperative example ? Be it, 
so, that we are in a literary, philosophic, and scientific age, 
what then ? Is it an age that has outlived the need of 
the gospel for its salvation ; or to the salvation of which 
anything else can supply a means, but the gospel ? The 
supposition that something else than the gospel, as the 
theme of our pulpit ministrations, is requisite for such a 
period as this, or that the gospel must be presented in a 
more philosophic form, appears to me a most dangerous 
sentiment, as being a disparagement to the gospel itself, 
and containing the very germ of infidelity. Let the taste 
be cultivated as it may by literature, or the mind be enlight- 
ened by science, or the reason disciplined by philosophy, 
the heart is still deceitful and wicked, the conscience still 
burdened with guilt, and the whole soul in a state of alien- 
ation from God. The moral constitution is mortally dis- 
eased, and nothing but the gospel is God's saving health, 



NATURE OF 3ARNESTNESS. 77 

which is as much required for the spiritual restoration of 
the polished son of science, as for that of the savage of 
New Zealand, or the Hottentot of South Africa. All else 
is but pretence and empiricism ; and the man who would 
be in earnest, and successful in the salvation of souls, must 
have a clear conviction and a deep impression of these 
facts. 

But perhaps the danger to which the evangelical ministry 
of the present age is exposed, is not so much a philosophiz- 
ing spirit, or an attempt to conform the gospel to any met- 
aphysical theory, as an effort to attain to a high intellect- 
uality in setting forth received truths. We hear a great 
deal about this in modern times. It is become a kind of 
cant term, (for there is a high cant as well as a low one,) 
to speak of some men as very intellectual preachers. If 
by an intellectual preacher be meant a man who applies 
the acquirements of a vigorous and well-trained under- 
standing to explain and enforce the great topics of evan- 
gelical truth ; or the application, in the most attractive 
form, of whatever knowledge such a mind, in the pursuit 
after information of all kinds, can obtain, to the great end 
of the Christian ministry ; or the employment of sound 
logic and natural eloquence to make the doctrines which 
are unto salvation bear down upon the heart and con- 
science ; in that case a man cannot be too intellectual : 
the great and glorious doctrines of revealed truth and life 
eternal, deserve and demand the mightiest energies of the 
noblest intellects. But if, as is too generally the case, this 
intellectuality means the cold, dry, argumentative discus- 
sion of religious truth, rather than evangelical subjects, or 
even of the latter in an abstract and essay-like form ; a 
mere heartless exercise of the understanding of the 
preacher, and intended or adapted only to engage the 



78 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

understanding of the hearers, without either interesting 
their affections or awakening their conscience ; such intel- 
lectuality will do nothing but empty the places of worship 
in which it is exhibited, or at best draw together a congre- 
gation of persons who cannot do without some religion, but 
who prefer the cold abstractions of the head to the warm 
affections of the heart. 

Here I would not be misconstrued to mean that e very- 
sermon must be on strictly evangelical themes ; but that 
these must be the prevailing topics of the man who is in 
earnest for the salvation *of souls. Nor would I go so far 
as to say that each sermon must contain as much of the 
gospel as would make every hearer of it acquainted with 
the way of salvation, though he never should listen 
to another discourse. There is such a thing as treating 
these subjects so carelessly, so familiarly, and so fre- 
quently, as to deprive them of all their power to interest 
and impress. A man whose soul is possessed with the 
passion for doing good, will make almost any and every 
topic adapted for usefulness. Subjects, which in other 
hands will be dry and uninteresting, will in his be invested 
with the glow and the warmth which live in his own soul, 
and which he imparts to everything he touches. His 
heart beats with an action so strong, so steady, and so 
healthful, that his fervid and holy intelligence circulates an 
evangelical vitality through what in others would be a cold 
and torpid frame, and thus causes the principle of gospel 
life to reach to the very extremities of the system of gene- 
ral truth. Still even he, though he dwell occasionally on 
every topic which can with propriety be brought into the 
pulpit, will, like the apostle, " glory only in the cross of 
Christ." Resisting the temptations to neglect a plain 
gospel, and to go in quest of airy speculations and unprofit- 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 79 

able novelties, his aim will not be to gratify the imagina- 
tive by what is tasteful and poetic, the philosophical by 
what is profound, the metapliysical by what is subtle, or 
the curious by what is strange, but by manifestation of the 
truth to commend himself to every man's conscience in the 
sight of God. Alas that any preacher of the gospel should 
take any other aim, and seek any other object, than this ! 
Do we want subjects for eloquence, where can we find them 
in such abundance, grandeur, and sublimity, as in the 
gospel scheme ? The cross is a fount of the purest, most 
impassioned, and most pathetic eloquence in the world, 
from which genius may go on to draw its streams without 
ever exhausting it. Compare the most finished orations 
and sermons of Massillon, Bossuet, or Bourdaloue, with 
McLaurin's discourse on " Glorying in the Cross ;" and 
though the former are more perfect as models of composi- 
tion, more decorated by all the artifices and graces of rhet- 
oric, yet how far below that incomparable sermon in the 
sublimity of its theme, and the grandeur of its evangelical 
eloquence, are these boasted models of the French pulpit. 
Even the soul of Blair kindled into something like a glow 
of pious warmth when he came, which he seldom did, 
within the attraction of this object ; and though it was but 
as moonlight, compared with the ardor of his colleague 
Walker, yet in his sermon on " The Death of Christ," his 
frigid elegance becomes enlivened by his theme, and fur- 
nishes a standing proof that the heathen morals of Epicte- 
tus are a barren source of eloquence, compared with the 
Christian doctrines of the apostle Paul. I make no 
apology for requoting a passage from an American author 
which I have already given to the public in my Address 
to Students : " My dear brethren, why are we not more 
impressive ? Theology affords the best field for tender, 



80 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

solemn, and sublime eloquence. The most august objects 
are presented * the most important interests are discussed ; 
the most tender motives are urged. God and angels ; the 
treason of Satan; the creation, ruin, and recovery of a 
world ; the incarnation, death, resurrection, and reip*n of the 

7 7 7 > — ) 

Son of God ; the day of judgment ; a burning universe ; 
an eternity ; a heaven and a hell — all pass before the eye. 
What are the petty dissensions of the states of Greece, or 
the ambition of Philip ; what are the plots and victories 
of Rome, or the treason of Cataline, compared with this ? 
If ministers were sufficiently qualified by education, study, 
and the Holy Ghost ; if they felt their subject as much as 
Demosthenes and Cicero did, they would be the most elo- 
quent men on earth, and would be so esteemed wherever 
congenial minds were found."* 

To know what themes contain the greatest potency over 
the public mind, and which should form the subject of an 
earnest ministry, we have only to consult the pages of 
ecclesiastical history. It is unnecessary, after what I have 
already written, to dwell upon the matter of apostolic 
preaching. It was by the purest evangelism that Chris- 
tianity was planted in the earth, and it was when this gave 
place to a religion of forms and ceremonies, that the power 
and vitality of true godliness declined, and a mass of splen- 
did corruption grew up, in the dark shadow of which the 
man of sin erected his throne, and the Papacy commenced 
its bloody reign. During the long night of the middle 
ages the sound of the faithful preacher was not heard, and 
the voice of Zion's watchman was silent, except in a few 
obscure nooks and corners of the earth ; but wherever it 
was then heard, the same effects followed. It was this 

* Dr. Griffin's Sermon on the Art of Preaching. 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. Pi 

subject with which Claude, of Turin, when nea?iji all the 
world were wondering after the Beast, awakened in the 
ninth century the inhabitants of Piedmont, and commenced 
that glorious work which was carried on, more or less, for 
centuries, amid the seclusion of Alpine rocks and valleys, 
and which the concentrated power and fury of the Papacy 
could never entirely subvert. It was this evangelism which 
our Wicliff preached in England in the fifteenth century, 
and by it kindled a fire, amidst the smouldering ashes of 
which lay concealed the embers that were again to ignite 
when fanned by the breath of the reformers a century 
afterwards. By what means did Luther achieve his im- 
irvrtal triumph over the powers of the Vatican, and smite 
oft the fetters which had enslaved the judgment, heart, 
and conscience of man ? By the potency of what subject 
did he lift up into freedom and dignity the prostrate intel- 
lect of the human race ? What was the instrument with 
which he struck the empire of darkness, and inflicted a 
blow which resounded through the civilized world ? It 
was the great evangelical doctrine of justification by faith. 
By what means did Whitfield and Wesley rouse the 
slumbering piety of our nation, and call up a spirit which 
is going on from strength to strength to this day ? By the 
evangelical system of divine truth. W T hat called forth 
the missionary enterprise, and constructed all that moral 
machinery which is at work upon the world's conversion ? 
Before what system of truths have the inhabitants of Poly- 
nesia and New Zealand surrendered their licentious habits 
and bloody rites ; and the Hottentots and Esquimaux 
dropped their barbarism, and risen up into the form and 
manners of civilized men ? What is the doctrine by which 
our missionaries are taking possession of India and China? 
I answer in one word, the doctrine of the cross. 

4* 



62 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

Here then is a fact attested by authentic history, and 
uncontradicted by any one who is acquainted either with 
the present or the past, that all the great moral revolutions 
of our world, during the time of the Christian era, have 
been effected by one simple process, by one set of means, 
— and that process is the preaching of the gospel. Prov- 
idential events may have prepared the way by levelling 
mountains and filling up valleys, and making smooth the 
course of the herald of the cross : but it was that herald's 
mighty voice proclaiming, " Behold the Lamb of God which 
taketh away the sins of the world," which by the power 
of God's Spirit has changed the moral aspect of our dark 
and dreary world. All this has not been done by learn- 
ing, science, and philosophy ; it is not the result of pro- 
found speculations on any theory of morals or of fine 
processes of reasoning ; or of splendid creations of poetic- 
genius ; or of the- subtleties of metaphysical discussion ; 
no, but of the simple testimony of the gosple. While the 
philosopher has been theorizing in his closet, and the moral 
arithmetician has been carrying on bis calculations in his 
study, the preacher has gone forth into the midst of the 
people, ignorant, wicked, and wretched as they were, has 
lifted up the great truth of a loving God, a dying Saviour, 
and a regenerating Spirit, and has by those means, as an 
instrument of God, changed the aspect of society, and 
revolutionized the moral habits of the nations. 

Strange that with the knowledge of these facts, any of 
our preachers should think of substituting these glorious 
truths, which have wrought such wonders in the world, by 
any other themes ; or should act as if weapons that had 
proved their adaptation and their power, should be wielded 
now with a doubtful mind, and with a hesitating hand. If 
we would know how we are to convert souls to God, we 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. S3 

have only to ask, how has God converted them ? Nor is it 
necessary to go back to past ages, or abroad to other coun- 
tries. Let us only look round upon our own country ; let 
us go to our largest congregations and our most numerous 
churches, and ask what kind of preaching has done all this ; 
what doctrine, and how handled, has drawn this multitude 
together ; what magnet has put forth its attractions here ? 
And the secret is soon discovered, and it will be found 
that here is an exemplification of our Lord Jesus Christ's 
words, " And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto 
me." Go into other places where an evangelical intellect- 
uality is substituted for the vital truths of the gospel; 
where philosophical abstractions take the place of popular 
addresses on great fundamental doctrines, and cold, logical 
essays are read, instead of heart-stirring sermons being 
preached ; and the attenuated and still declining congre- 
gations proclaim the want of adaptation in the pulpit min- 
istrations, and prove that for the popular mind there can be 
no substitute for the cross of Christ. Nor does this apply 
exclusively to the uneducated, or partially educated classes. 
Human nature in all its prevailing features, tastes, necessi- 
ties, and enjoyments, is the same in the king and in the 
peasant ; in the savage and the sage. All men are made 
susceptible of emotion, as well as capable of feeling ; and 
all men love to feel, as well as to think. A tradesman, or 
professional man, who has been at work all the week, hav- 
ing had his mind strained with hard thinking, as well as his 
body by hard labor, when he takes his seat in his pew on 
a Sabbath morning, wants something for his heart, as well 
as for his head. With a sermon, however intellectual it 
may be, which has nothing that comes home to his affec- 
tions, and causes him to feel, he is sure to be disappointed 
and dissatisfied. A dry essay on some gospel subject 



84 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

which only proves a point he never doubted, or stares a 
difficulty he never dreamt of, is like giving him a stone 
when he asks for bread. He wants to be made to feel 
there is something higher and better than this world. He 
desires to enjoy the luxury of hallowed emotion, he covets 
the joy and peace of believing, and the anticipations of 
that world, where the w r eary are at rest, and the din of 
business will be forever hushed. That man, tired and 
laded by the cares, anxieties, and toils of six days, wants 
to lie down and take repose on the soft green of evangeli- 
cal truth, and not on the hard rocks of abstract specula- 
tion. It is true, that being a man of education and read- 
ing, his heart must be reached through his intellect, and 
though it must be the substantial bread of evangelical truth 
with which he is fed, yet it must not be coarse or chaffy ; 
it must not only be prepared and made of the finest of the 
wheat, but it must also be well mixed, and made pala- 
table to a refined taste by a skilful hand. 

Before I pass from this part of the subject, it may be 
proper to remark that perhaps there are few expressions 
more misunderstood, and on which more mistakes have 
been made, than "preaching the gosjiel." Many by the 
use of this phrase aim to exclude from the pulpit almost 
every topic but a perpetual and almost unvarying exhibi- 
tion of the death of our Lord, and consider this specifi- 
cally, and this only, as preaching Christ. But it is strange- 
ly forgotten by the preachers of this school, that as the 
scheme of mediation by the Saviour is founded on the eter- 
nal obligation and immutable nature of the law of God, 
and was intended, not to subvert, but to uphold its author- 
ity, the moral law must be explained and enforced, in all 
its purity, spirituality, and extent. Repentance towards 
God is no less included in the apostolic ministry, than faith 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 85 

in our Lord Jesus Christ ; and how can a sinner repent of 
his transgressions against the law, if he know not the law 
he has violated? for "sin is the transgression of the law:" 
and " by the law is the knowledge of sin." So that no man 
can know sin without knowing the law ; and herein appears 
to me one of the prevailing defects of modern preaching, 
I mean the neglect of holding up this perfect mirror, in 
which the sinner shall see reflected his own moral image. 
It is true that some are melted down at once into a sense 
of wickedness, and brought to the exercise of both repent- 
ance and faith, by an exhibition of divine love in the death 
of Christ ; but I do not think this is so usual a method of 
conversion as the first awakening of the sinner by an expo- 
sition and application of the perfect law. Dr. Dwight 
says, " Few , very few, are ever awakened or convinced by 
the encouragements and promises of the gospel : but 
almost all by the denunciations of the law. The blessings 
of immortality, the glories of heaven, are usually, to say 
the least, preached with little efTicacy to an assembly of 
sinners. I have been surprized to see how dull, inatten- 
tive, and sleepy such an assembly has been, amidst the 
strongest representations of these divine subjects, combin- 
ing the most vivid images with a vigorous style and an im- 
pressive elocution."* This is a strong testimony, but it is 
perhaps a little overstated. Still I am persuaded there is 
much truth in it, for it seems to stand by reason, that men 
will care little about pardon till they are convinced of sin, 
and as the apostle says, it is by the law that they come to 
the knowledge of sin. In this particular there appears to 
me a superior adaptation in the American preaching to the 
work of conviction, than in the British pulpit ; there is 

* Vol. II., p. 417. 



86 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

more of this exposition of the law, and of the application 
of it to the sinner's conscience more that is calculated to 
make him feel at once his obligations and his guilt ; more 
of that which silences his excuses, unravels the deceit ful- 
ness of his heart, strips him of self-righteousness, make* 
him thoroughly acquainted with himself and his entire need 
of a Saviour ; in short, more of what the apostle calls com- 
mending himself to every man's conscience in the sight of 
God. With this, however, is I think associated a want of 
evangelical fulness and tenderness. I remember a discus- 
sion, by a large company of ministers in my vestry, on 
one occasion, as to what style of preaching had been found 
in their own experience to be most useful ; and it was pretty 
generally admitted, and some of them had been among 
our most successful preachers, that sermons on alarming 
and impressive texts had been most blessed, in producing 
conviction of sin, and first concern about salvation. At the 
same time it must be recollected, that though descriptions 
of sin may affect — exhibiting the consequences of it may 
affright — vehement censures of it may alarm — reasoning 
concerning it may open the gloomy road to despair — this 
alone will not convert. Law without gospel will harden, 
as gospel without law will only lead to carelessness and 
presumption : it is the union of both that will possess the 
sinner with a loathing of himself, and love To God. Still 
our danger in this age lies not so much in neglecting the 
gospel, as in omitting to associate with this the preaching 
of the law. It is worthy of remark that Jesus Christ, who 
was incarnate love itself, the living gospel, yea, the way, 
the truth, the life, was the most alarming preacher that 
was ever in our world. It is, however, especially incum- 
bent upon us not to mistake grossness for fidelity, nor 
harshness for earnestness. The remarks of Mr. Hall on this, 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 87 

are as correct as they are beautiful. " A harsh and unfeel- 
ing manner of denouncing the threatenings of the word of 
God, is not only barbarous and inhuman, but calculated, by 
inspiring disgust, to rob them of all their efficiency. If 
the awful part of our message, which may be styled the 
burden of the Lord, ever fall with due weight upon our 
hearers, it will be when it is delivered with a trembling 
hand, and faltering lips." The look, the tone, the action, 
when such subjects are discussed, should be a mixture of 
solemnity and affection — the awfulness of love. To hear 
such topics dwelt upon in strong language, vehement 
action, and boisterous tones, strikes us as being an utter 
violation of all propriety, and in every hearer of the least 
discernment, is likely to excite horror and revulsion. Real 
earnestness is the result of deep emotion, and the emotion 
excited by the sight of a fellow- creature perishing in his 
sins is that of the tenderest commiseration, which will 
express itself, not in stormy declamation and thundering 
denunciators, but of solemnly chastened expostulation arid 
appeal. 



CHAPTER IV. 

NATURE OF EARNESTNESS CONTINUED. 

EARNESTNESS IN REFERENCE TO MANNER. 

I now pass from matter to manner ; and when I say 
manner, I wish to be understood as including in that term, 
not simply the method of communicating truth by voice and 
gesture, but the cast of thought and the style of composi- 
tion in reference to the truth so enunciated ; and what is 
wanted for the pulpit is a vivacious, in opposition to a 
stiff, formal, and dull method. Style must of course to a 
considerable extent vary with the subject matter, and be 
regulated by it. In exegetical preaching, or in that part 
of a sermon which is merely expository, all that is re- 
quired, and what is required, is a calm perspicuity, a flow 
of clear, limpid, quiet thought, which shall instruct the 
understanding, and gently draw after it the heart, without 
being expected to move, in any great degree, the passions. 
We have some beautiful specimens of this in the elegant 
discourses of Dr. Wardlaw. Well would it be if, after his 
manner, we could be critical without being pedantic; exe- 
getical without being scholastic ; and invest exposition with 
charms which should make it attractive to all our conore- 
gations. But though a careful analysis of the text should, 
be the basis of almost all our sermons, there needs some- 
thing more than mere exegesis, however clear or correct. 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 89 

We have to do not only with a dark intellect that needs 
to be instructed, but with a hard heart that needs to be 
impressed, and a torpid conscience that needs to be 
awakened ; and have to make our hearers feel that in the 
great business of religion, there is much to be done, as 
well as much to be known. We must give knowledge, for 
light is as essential to the growth of piety in the spiritual 
world, as it is to the growth of vegetation in the natural 
one : and then the analogy holds good in another point, 
for we must not only let in light but add great and vigor- 
ous labor to carry on the culture. We must, therefore, 
rise from exegesis into exhortation, warning, and expostu- 
lation. The apostle's manner is the right one, — " Whom 
we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man, 
that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." 
There must not only be the directive, but the impulsive 
manner. All our hearers know far more of the Bible 
than they practice : the head is far in advance of the 
heart; and our great business is to persuade, to entreat, 
to beseech. We have to leal with a dead, heavy vis in- 
ertice of mind ; yea more, we have to overcome a stout 
resistance, and to move a reluctant heart. If all that was 
necessary to secure the ends of our ministry was to lay the 
truth open to the mind ; if the heart were already predis- 
posed to the subject of our preaching, then, like the lec- 
turer on science, we might dispense with the hortatory 
manner, and confine ourselves exclusively to explanation : 
logic, unaccompanied by rhetoric, would suffice. But 
when we find in every sinner we address, an individual 
acting in opposition to the dictates of his judgment, and 
the warnings of his conscience, as well as to the testimony 
of Scripture ; an individual who is sacrificing the interests 
of his immortal sv>ul to the vanities of the world, and the 



90 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

corruptions of his heart ; an individual who is madly bent 
upon his ruin, and rushing to the precipice from which he 
will take his fatal leap into perdition ; can we in that case 
be satisfied with merely explaining, however clearly, and 
demonstrating, however conclusively, the truth of revela- 
tion ? To borrow the allusion which I have already made, 
should we think it enough, coldly to unfold the sin of sui- 
cide, and logically to arrange the proofs of its criminality, 
before the man who had in his hand the pistol or the poi- 
son with which he was just about to destroy himself? 
Would exegesis, however clear and accurate, be enough in 
this case ? Should we not entreat, expostulate, beseech ? 
Should we not lay hold of the arm uplifted for destruction, 
and snatch the poison cup from the hand that was about 
to apply it to the lips ? What is the case with the impeni- 
tent sinners to whom we preach, but that of individuals 
bent upon self-destruction, not indeed the present destruc- 
tion of their bodies, but of their souls ? There they are be- 
fore our eyes, rushing in their sins and their impenitence to 
the precipice that overhangs he pit of destruction ; and 
shall we content ourselves with sermons, however excellent 
for elegance, for logic, for perspicuity, and even for evan- 
gelism, but which have no hortatory power, no restraining 
tendency, none of the apostle's beseeching entreaty ? Shall 
we merely lecture on theology, and deal out religious 
science, to men who, amidst a flood of light already pour- 
ing over them, care for none of these things ? 

It is a question of not a little difficulty, how far the 
usual rules and qualities of secular eloquence may be car- 
ried out in the composition of our sermons. The language 
of the apostle, in reference to hi* own preaching, has been 
thought to forbid all elaboration, — " Christ sent me to 
preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 91 

cross of Christ should be made of none effect." A right 
understanding of his circumstances and ours, will show us 
that there are differences which forbid too rigid and literal 
an application of this sentiment to us. Miracles gave a 
potency to his preaching, which is wanting, of course, in 
ours. Besides, the wisdom here forbidden was not the 
selection of the best words, and placing them in the best 
order for the statement of divine truth, but that combina- 
tion of false philosoplry and artificial rhetoric, which was 
the usual practice of the Grecian schools ; in short, he 
forbade such a method of setting forth evangelical doctrine 
as would have brought it into conformity, both as to mat- 
ter and manner, with the fashionable systems of philoso- 
phy. Provided the elaboration is carried on with a view 
to make the sermon at once perspicuous and impressive, 
to give it power to command the attention, and, at the 
same time, to instruct the judgment, engage the affections, 
and awaken the conscience ; to render the subject clearly 
understood and deeply felt, it cannot be too perfectly done. 
No elaboration which causes the hearer to forget the 
preacher, and even the sermon as a production of art, and 
to think only of himself and the subject ; which rivets 
attention, and makes every one feel that he is in the pres- 
ence, not only of man, but of God ; which lays open the 
way of salvation so clearly that the most obtuse under- 
standing shall comprehend it, and at the same time, so forci- 
bly that the dullest heart shall feel it, cannot be wrong. If 
a preacher of the power of Demosthenes were to arise, he 
would, and must, carry that power into the pulpit, and 
ou^ht to do so. But, on the other hand, an elaboration 
that is betrayed in every part of the discourse, and which 
makes it but too evident to any serious or observant mind, 
that it was the preacher's aim, not to convert souls, but to 



92 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

catch applause ; which, in the view of the fashionable, the 
giddy, and the frivolous, entitles the sermonizer to the 
highest rank among pulpit orators ; which fills the dis- 
course with flowery diction and gaudy metaphors, with 
elegant declamation, and fanciful descriptions, with taste- 
ful addresses, and beautiful pictures ; which, though it 
takes the cross for its subject, almost instantly leaves it, 
and runs out into the fields of poesy, or the labyrinths of 
metaphysics, for its subtle arguments or its sparkling and 
splendid illustrations ; which, to sum up all, engages the 
judgment or amuses the imagination, but never moves the 
heart, or calls the conscience to discharge its severe and 
awful functions — such preaching may render a minister 
popular, secure him large congregations, and procure for 
him the plaudits of the multitude ; but where are the sin- 
ners converted from the error of their way, and the souls 
saved from death? Yerily I say unto you, if such a 
preacher has his reward only in the applause of the multi- 
tude, whose object and aim were as low as his own — it 
was what he sought, and all he sought, and let him not 
complain if he have this, and nothing else. From such 
preachers may God Almighty preserve our churches, and 
may he give us men who better know their business in the 
pulpit, and better do it. 

Simplicity of style, then, as opposed to the artificial and 
rhetorical, is essential to earnestness ; for who can believe 
thai man to be intent on saving souls, who seems to 
have labored in the study only to make his sermon as fine 
as crl it termer imagery and hio-h- sounding diction could ren- 
der it ? I could as soon believe a physician were intent on 
saving his fellow creatures from death, who, when the 
plague was sweeping them into the grave, spent his time 
in studying to w v ite his prescriptions in beautifu charac- 



NATURE OF EARNEi INESS. 93 

ters, and classical latinity. There are some judicious 
remarks on the style of the pulpit in two papers which 
came out some time since, one in the Edinburgh Review, 
and the other in the Quarterly, on Hare's " Village Ser- 
mons," those admirable models of simplicity. 

The object of the reviewer in the Quarterly is to illustrate 
the nature, to prove the necessity, and to urge the culti- 
vation of simplicity, especially in those sermons which are 
addressed to congregations which are composed in great 
measure of the poor. After giving a quotation or two in 
which Mr. Hare had made mention of " smuoroders and 
poachers," " tea and wheaten bread," the critic remarks : 

" We have preachers in oar time who would have flinched from 
expressions so natural and straight-forward, and would infallibly 
have warned their poor people against holding any intercourse 
with the nocturnal marauder on the main or the manor ; and have 
suggested to them the gratitude they owed for a fragrant bever- 
age and farinaceous food. And so might Mr. Hare, if his taste 
had been less correct, and liis desire of doing good less earnest. 
Affectation is bad enough anywhere ; in the pulpit it is intolera- 
ble." 

In speaking of illustrations, the writer goes on to advert 
to the excessive quaintness which was one of the vices of 
sermons before and about the time of the Reformation : 

u Accordingly, within a century after the Reformation we find 
Thomas Fuller, the last man, from natural temperament, one 
would have thought likely to offer a caution upon such a subject, 
saying of the faithful minister, ' His smiles and illustrations are 
always familiar, never contemptible. Indeed reasons are the pil- 
lars of the fabric of a sermon, but similitudes are the windows 
which give the best light. He avoids such stories whose men- 
tion may suggest bad thoughts to the auditors, and will not use 
a light comparison to make thereof a grave application, for fear 



94 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

iest his poison go farther than his antidote.' Preaching, there- 
fore, now took an opposite tack, and from having been certainly 
once too succulent, by the time of John Wesley had become sap- 
less. This was one cause which rendered the new style of 
preaching adopted by him and his followers so attractive. The 
standard, according to which the character of the imagery and 
diction of the pulpit of modern days was regulated, was not fixed 
before the divines of Queen Ann's time ; as the vocabulary of 
poetry, according to Johnson, was not determined before the age 
of Dryden. In both cases the restraint has been injurious to the 
subject of it. There was a Doric simplicity — ' wood-notes wild,' 
— in the poets before Dryden, for which the greater correctness, 
it may be, of those who have since lived, is but a poor substitute ; 
and there was a homely vigor in the sentiments and phraseology 
of the pulpit of the first and second Charles, which has been ill 
replaced by the decorous tameness of later times. Surely it is a 
morbid taste, and one that requires correction, which would kick 
at images that satisfied a Barrow ; and yet we could point to 
numbers in his sermons which would now be rejected by the 
preacher, even the village preacher too, as mean and pedestrian. 
The familiar illustrations, therefore, by which a subject is ren- 
dered clear to persons slow to apprehend, and interesting to per- 
sons hard to be excited, is a figure not lightly to be renounced in 
deference to the false refinement of the magnates of a congrega- 
tion — though doubtless capable of abuse. We say false refine- 
ment, for there are parables both in the prophets and in the 
gospels, against which the same parties might raise the same 
objections."* 

In a similar strain, and with a like object, though with 
still more expansion of thought, a masterly writer in the 
Edinburgh Review remarks : 

" We have long felt that the eloquence of the pulpit in its gen- 
eral character has never been assimilated so far as it might have 

* Quarterly Review, Article II., No. 117. 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 95 

been, and ought to have been, to that which has produced the 
greatest effects elsewhere, and which is shown to be of the right 
kind, alike by the success which has attended it, and by an analy- 
sis of the qualities by which it has been distinguished. If we 
were compelled to give a brief definition of the truest style of 
eloquence, we should say it was ' practical reasoning, animated 
by strong emotion ;' or, if we might be indulged in what is rather 
a description than a definition of it, we should say that it consisted 
in reasoning on topics calculated to inspire a common interest, 
expressed in the language of ordinary life, and in that brief, 
rapid, familiar style, which natural emotion ever assumes. The 
former haff of this description would condemn no small portion 
of the compositions called sermons, and the latter half a still 
larger portion. 

" We would not be misunderstoood. It is far — very far — from 
our intention to speak in terms of the slighest depreciation of 
the immense treasures of learning, of acute disquisition, of pro- 
found speculation, of powerful controversy, which the literature 
of the English pulpit exemplifies. In these points it cannot be 
surpassed. In vigor and originality of thought, in argumentative 
power, in extensive and varied erudition, it as far transcends all 
other literature of the same kind, as it is deficient in the qualities 
which are fitted to produce popular impression. We merely as- 
sert that the greater part of ' sermons' are not at all entitled to 
the name, if by it be meant discourses specially adapted to the 
object of instructing, convincing, or persuading the common 
mindP 

After some admirably judicious remarks on the topics of 
the pulpit, designed to prove that these should be such as 
are calculated to inspire a common interest in the mass of 
a common audience, the writer goes on to speak of the 
manner of discussing them, and observes : 

" Where the topics are not such as are fairly open to cen- 
sure, a large class of preachers, especially amongst the young, 
grievously err by investing them with the technicalities of science 



96 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

arid philosophy ; either because they foolishly suppose they there- 
by give their compositions a more philosophical air, or because 
they disdain the homely and the vulgar. We remember hearing 
of a worthy man of this class, who, having occasion to tell his 
audience the simple truth that there was not one gospel for the 
rich, and another for the poor, informed them, ' that if they would 
not be saved on general principles,' they could not be saved at 
all ! With such men it is not sufficient to say, that such and 
such a thing must be, but there is always c a moral and physical 
necessity for it.' The ' will ' is too old-fashioned a thing to be 
mentioned, and everything is done by ' volition ;' duty is expanded 
into ' moral obligation ;' man not only ought to do this, that, or 
the other, it is always ' by some principle of their moral nature f 
they not only like to do so and so, but ' they are impelled by some 
natural propensity ;' men not only think and do, but they are never 
represented as thinking and doing without some parade of their 
' intellectual processes and active powers.' Such discourses are 
full of ' moral beauty,' and ' necessary relations,' and ' philosophi- 
cal demonstrations,' and * laws of nature,' and a priori and a 
fortiori arguments. If some simple fact of physical science is 
referred to in the way of argument or illustration, it cannot be 
presented in common language, but must be exhibited in the 
pomp of the most approved scientific technicalities. If there b? 
a common and scientific name for the same object, ten to one that 
the latter is adopted. Heat straightway becomes ' caloric ;' light- 
ning, ' the electric fluid ;' instead of plants and animals, we are 
surrounded by ' organized substances ;' life is nothing half so good 
as ' the vital principle.' Not only is such language as this ob- 
scurely understood, or not understood at all, but even if perfectly 
understood, must necessarily be far less effective than those sim- 
ple terms of common life, which for the most part may be substi- 
tuted for them. The sermons of Augustus William Hare 
may serve to show how the abstract terms of philosophy may l*t 
advantageously translated into simple, racy English."* 

* Edinburgh Review. No. 145. On the British Pulpit. 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 9? 

So harmonious are the judgments on the best style of 
preaching of two writers, belonging to very different schools 
of literature and religion, whose keen sarcasm it may be 
hoped will correct the pedantry at which it is aimed, and 
convince many an ambitious aspirant after popularity, that 
whatever may be the method which will secure the ap- 
plause of the frivolous and the ignorant, simplicity is the 
only way to usefulness and to secure the approbation of 
the serious, the wise, and the good. An affectation of 
learning and science in the pulpit is not only a sin against 
good taste, but betrays an utter want of that watching for 
immortal souls, which is, or ought to be, the preacher's 
steady and constant aim. To borrow the homely, but for- 
cible language of Doolittle, — 

" The eyeing of eternity should make us ministers painful and 
dVgent in our studies to prepare a message of such weight as we 
come about, when preaching to men concerning everlasting mat- 
ters, and should especially move us to he plain in our speech, 
that even the capacity of the weakest in the congregation, that 
hath an eternal soul, that must be damned, or saved, might un- 
derstand in things necessary to salvation, what we mean, and 
aim, and drive at. It hath made me tremble to hear some soar 
aloft, that knowing men might know their parts, whilst the meaner 
sort are kept from the knowledge of it ; and put their matter in 
such a dress of words, in such a style so composed, that the most 
stand looking at the preacher in the face, and hear a sound, but 
know not what he saith, and while he doth pretend to feed them, 
doth indeed starve them. Would a man of any bowels of com- 
passion go from a prince to a condemned man, and tell him in 
such a language that he should not understand, the condition upon 
which the prince would pardon him, and then the poor man lose 
his life because the proud and haughty messenger must show his 
knack in delivering his message in fine English, which the con- 
demned man could not understand ?" 



98 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

I shall not inappropriately introduce here a quotation 
from that great master of chaste eloquence, Robert Hall, 
whose opinion on any subject, but especially on that of the 
art of preaching, in which he was himself so extraordinary 
a proficient, is entitled to peculiar deference : 

" A great diversity of talents must be expected to be found 
among them, (the evangelical clergy ;) but it has not been our 
lot to hear of any, whose labors a good man would think it right 
to treat with indiscriminate contempt. As they are called, for the 
most part, to address the middle and lower classes of society, their 
language is plain and simple ; speaking in the presence of God, 
• their address is solemn ; and, ' as becomes the ambassadors of 
Christ,' their appeals to the conscience are close and cogent. 
Few, if any among them, aspire to the praise of consummate 
orators — a character which we despair of every seeing associated, 
in high perfection, with that of a Christian teacher. The minis- 
ter of the gospel is called to declare the testimony of God, which 
is always weakened by a profuse employment of the ornaments 
of secular eloquence. Those exquisite paintings, and nice touches 
of art, in which the sermons of the French preachers excel so 
much, excite a kind of attention, and produce a species of pleas- 
ure, not in perfect accordance with devotional feeling. The 
imagination is too much excited and employed, not to interfere 
with the more awful functions of conscience ; the hearer is ab- 
sorbed in admiration, and the exercise which ought to be an in- 
strument of conviction, becomes a feast of taste. In the hand 
of a Massillon, the subject of death itself is blended with so 
many associations of the most delicate kind, and calls up so many 
sentiments of natural tenderness, as to become a source of the- 
atrical amusement, rather than of religious sensibility. Without 
being insensible to the charms of eloquence, it is our decided 
opinion that a sermon of Mr. Gisborne's b more calculated to 
' convert a sinner from the error of his way ' than one of Massil- 
LOn's. It is a strong objection to a studied attempt at oratory in 
the pulpit, that it usually induces a neglect of the peculiar doc- 



NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 99 

trines of Christian verity, where the preacher feels himself re- 
strained, and is under the necessity of explaining texts, of obviat- 
ing objections, and elucidating difficulties, which limits the excur- 
sions of imagination, and confines it within narrow bounds. He 
is therefore eager to escape from these fetters, and, instead of 
* reasoning out of the Scriptures? expatiates in the flowery fields of 
declamation." 

It appears to me that a want of powerful, eloquent, yet 
simple and unaffected exhortation, is among the greatest 
deficiencies of the modern pulpit. Let any one read the 
sermons of our great nonconformist ancestors, of Clark- 
son, Doolittle, Manton, Howe, Ow t en, Bates, Flavel, 
and especially of Baxter, and mark the all but overwhelm- 
ing force of persuasion which is put forth in the applica- 
tion of their powerful discourses ; let him see how these 
great men exerted the mightiness of their strength to make 
all they had said to the judgment reach the heart and 
awaken the conscience. And to come to more modern 
times, let him read the sermons of Whitfield, Jonathan 
Edwards, and Davies of New Jersey ; and to advance to 
still more modern productions, let them peruse the sermons 
of Mr. Parsons of York, and many of the best preachers 
on the other side of the Atlantic, Spring, Barnes, Skin- 
ner, Beecher, Griffin, Clarke, and Sprague. Also 
Robert Hall's sermon on " Marks of love to God," and 
Bradley's sermon on " Our lamps are gone out," for fine 
specimens of this hortatory method ; this bearing dowTi 
with the truth on the sinner's heart and conscience ; this 
beseeching men to be reconciled to God. Some specimens 
of this method will be given in the following chapter. Now 
this is earnestness in preaching ; when a man is seen to 
feel the truths he discusses ; when it is evident to all that 
he believes what he says, in affirming that his hearers are 



100 NATURE OF EARNESTNESS,. 

sinking into perdition, and that he is laboring to persuade 
them to forsake their evil courses ; when his sermons are 
full of close, pointed, personal addresses ; when, in short, 
through the whole discourse, the preacher is seen moving 
onward from the understanding to a closer and closer 
approximation to the heart in the conclusion, and the hearer 
feels at length the hand of the preacher seizing it with a 
mysterious and resistless power. 



CHAPTER V. 

NATURE OF EARNESTNESS. 

ILLUSTRATED BY SPECIMENS FROM VARIOUS AUTHORS. 

Familiar as most of the readers of this work are with 
examples of the kind of manner intended by me, I have 
thought it would help to illustrate and enforce my mean- 
ing if I introduced a few extracts from different authors 
by way of specimens. Those which are here presented 
are not selected as possessing anything veiy extraordinary, 
or as being the best of the kind that could be selected from 
the same authors ; but they are sufficient to answer my 
purpose. Nor are they exhibited as models to be in every 
particular imitated in modern composition, but as pervaded 
by that one quality of intense earnestness, which it is the 
object of this work to recommend. 

The first extract which I shall quote is from a sermon of 
Mr. Doolittle. This eminent minister of Christ was eject- 
ed by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662, from the church of 
St. Alphage, London Wall. He was a man of extraordi- 
nary courage, power, and success in preaching ; and, after 
his expulsion from his living, educated young men for the 
ministry. The extract which follows is taken from a dis- 
course contained in that valuable series called " The Mora- 



102 SPECIMENS OF 

ing Exercises,"* and is entitled, " How we should eye eter- 
nity so that it may have its influence on all we do." It is 
perhaps the most solemn and awful sermon in the English 
or any other language ; and is overcharged sadly with ter- 
minology, which, though it should be sparingly introduced , 
ought not to be altogether excluded from the modern pulpit, 
even in this fastidious age. The sickly sentimentalism 
which would " never mention hell to ears polite," should 
be abjured with as much disgust as a gross and almost 
profane familiarity with these awful realities. It was not 
only Doolittle's fault, but it was the vice of the age, to 
approach somewhat too near to the latter extreme. But 
then after this admission is made, let us look at the burn- 
ing and overwhelming earnestness of the sermon. 

" Is there an eternal state ; such unseen eternal joys and tor- 
ments ? Who then can sufficiently lament the blindness, madness, 
and folly of this distracted world, and the unreasonableness of 
those that have rational and eternal souls, to see them busily 
employed in the matters of time, which are only for time, in 
present honors, pleasures, and profits, w T hile they do neglect 
everlasting things : everlasting life and death is before them, 
everlasting joy or torment is hard at hand ; and yet poof sinners 
take no care how to avoid the one, or obtain the other. Is it not 
matter of lamentation to see so many thousands bereaved of the 
sober, serious use of their understandings ? That while they use 
their reason to get the riches of this world, they will not act as 
rational men to get the joys of heaven ; and to avoid temporal 
calamities, yet not to escape eternal misery. Or if they be fallen 
into present afflictions, they contrive how they may get out of 
them : if they be sick, reason tells them they must use the means, 
if they would be well , if they be in pain, nature puts them on to 



* A new edition of this work has been lately published by Tegg, 
and let every young minister be sure to purchr.se a copy. 



EARNESTNESS. 103 

seek after a remedy ; and yet these same men neglect all duty, 
and cast away all care concerning everlasting matters ; they are 
for seen pleasures and profits, which are passing from them in 
the enjoyment of them ; but the unseen eternal glory in heaven 
! they pray not for, they think not of. Are they unjustly charged ? 
Let conscience speak, what thoughts they lie down withal upon 
their pillow; if they wake or sleep, fly from them in the silent 
night, what a noise doth the cares of the world make in their 
souls ? With what thoughts dc they rise in the morning ? Of 
God, or of the world ? Of the things of time, or of eternity ? 
Their thoughts are in their shops before they have been in 
heaven; and many desires after visible temporal gain, before 
they have had one desire after the invisible, eternal God, and 
treasures that are above. What do they do all the day long ? 
What is it that hath their endeavors, all their labor and travel ? 
their most painful industry and unwearied diligence ? Alas ! 
their consciences will tell themselves, and their practices tell 
others, when there is trading, but no praying ; buying and selling, 
but no religious duties performed : the shop-book is often opened, 
but the sacred book of God is not looked into all the week long. 

" O Lord ! forgive the hardness of my heart, that I can see 
such insufferable folly among reasonable creatures, and can 
lament this folly no more : good Lord, forgive the want of compas- 
sion in me, that can stand and see this distraction in the world, as 
if the most of men had lost their wits, and were quite beside them- 
selves, and yet my bowels yearn no more towards immortal souls 
that are going to unseen miseries in the eternal world. To see 
distracted men busy in doing things that tend to no account is 
not such an amazing sight, as to see men that have reason for the 
world, to use it not for God, and Christ, and their own eternal 
good : to see them love and embrace a present dunghill world, 
and cast away all serious, affecting, and effectual thoughts of the 
life to come : to see them rage against the God of heaven, and 
cry out against holiness as foolish preciseness, and serious godli- 
ness as madness, and melancholy. 

" Let us call the whole creation of God to lament and bewail 
the folly of man, that was made the best of all God's visible 



104 SPECIMENS OF 

works ; but now by such wickedness is bad beyond them all, 
being made by God for an everlasting state, and yet minds nothing 
less than that for which he was principally made. 

" O sun ! why is it not thy burden to give light to men to do 
those works, and walk in those ways that bring them to eternal 
darkness ? O earth ! why dost thou not groan to bear such bur- 
densome fools that dig into thy bowels for gold and silver, while 
they do neglect everlasting treasures in the eternal world ? O 
ye sheep and oxen ! fish and fowl ! why do ye not cry out against 
them that take your present life to maintain them in being, that 
only mind present things, but forget the eternal God that gave 
them dominion over you, to live upon you while they had time 
to mind eternal things, but do not ? O ye angels of God, 
and blessed saints in heaven, were ye capable of grief and 
sorrow, would not ye bitterly lament the sin and folly of poor 
mortals upon earth ? Could ye look down from that blessed 
place where ye do dwell, and behold the joy and glory which 
is to us unseen, and see how it is basely slighted by the 
sons of men, if ye were not above sorrow and mourning, would 
not ye take this up for a bitter lamentation ? O ye saints on 
eartly. whose eyes are open to see what the blind deluded world 
doth not see, do ye bitterly take on, let your heads be fountains 
of water, and your eyes send forth rivers of tears, for the great 
neglect of eternal joys and happiness of heaven ? Can you see 
men going out of time into eternity in their sin, and i-n their 
blood, in their guilt, and unconverted state, and your hearts not 
moved ? your bowels not yearn ? Have ye spent all your tears 
in bewailing your own sin, that your eyes are dry when you be- 
hold such monstrous madness, and unparalleled folly of so many, 
with whom daily ye converse ? Ye sanctified parents, have ye 
no pity for your ungodly children ? Nor sanctified children, for 
ungodly parents ?" 

The next extract I give, is from holy Baxter, under 
whose ministry Doolittle was converted, and from whom 
he appears to have borrowed his own manner of preaching. 



EARNESTNESS. 105 

u O sirs, they are no trifles or jesting matters that the gospei 
speaks of. I must needs profess to you that when I have the 
most serious thoughts of these things, I am ready to wonder that 
such amazing matters do not overwhelm the souls of men ; that 
the greatness of the subject doth not so overmatch our under- 
standings and affections, as even to drive men beside themselves, 
but that God hath always somewhat allayed it by distance ; much 
more do I wonder that men should be so blockish as to make 
light of such things. O Lord, that men did but know what ever- 
lasting glory and everlasting torments are ! Would they then 
hear us as they do ? Would they read and think of these things 
as they do ? I profess I have been ready to wonder when I have 
heard such weighty things delivered, how people can forbear 
crying out in the congregation ; and much more do I wonder 
how they can rest, till they have gone to their ministers, and 
learned what they shall do to be saved, that this ^/eat business 
should be put out of doubt. O that heaven and hull should work 
no more upon men ! O that eternity should work no more ! O 
how can you forbear when you are alone, to think with yourselves 
what it is to be everlastingly in joy or torment ! I wonder that 
such thoughts do not break your sleep, and that thoy do not crowd 
into your minds, when you are about your labor ! I wonder how 
you can almost do anything else ! How can you have any quiet- 
ness in your minds ? How can you eat, or drink, or rest, till you 
have got some ground of everlasting consolations. Is that a 
man or a corpse, that is not affected with matters of this moment 
— that can be readier to sleep than to tremble, when he hears 
how he must stand at the bar of God ? Is that a man or a clod 
of clay that can rise up and lie down without being deeply 
affected with his everlasting state — that can follow his worldly 
business, and make nothing of the great business of salvation or 
damnation, and that when he knows it is so hard at hand ? Truly, 
sirs, when I think of the weight of the matter, I wonder at the 
best saints upon earth, that they are no better and do no more, in 
so weighty a case. I wonder at those whom the world accounts 
more holy than needs, and scorns for making so much ado, that 
they can put off Christ and their souls with so little ; that they do 

5* 



106 SPECIMENS OF 

not pour out their souls in every prayer ; that they are not more 
taken up with Gfxl ; that their thoughts are not more serious in 
preparation for their last account. I wonder that they are not a 
thousand times more strict in their lives, and more laborious and 
unwearied for the crown, than they are. And for myself, as I 
am ashamed of my dull and careless heart, and of my slow and 
unprofitable course of life, so the Lord knows I am ashamed of 
every sermon that I preach : when I think what I am, and who 
sent me, and how much the salvation and damnation of men is 
concerned in it, I am ready to tremble, lest God should judge me 
a slighter of his truth, and the souls of men, and lest in my best 
sermon I should be guilty of their blood. Methinks we should 
not speak a word to men in matters of such consequence with- 
out tears, or the greatest earnestness that possibly we can. Were 
we not too much guilty of the sin which we reprove, it would be 
so. Whether we are alone, or in company, methinks our end, 
and such an end, should still be in our mind, and as before our 
eyes, and we should sooner forget anything, or set light by any- 
thing, or by all things, than by this." 

The third extract I give, is from the works of that great 
and serene spirit, John Howe, whose surpassing grandeur 
of thought and expression places him, in this respect, above 
all his compeers. His sermon on the " Inquiry whether 
we love God," is one of the finest pieces of solemn, heart- 
searching expostulation, which can be found in the whole 
range of English theolosrv, from which I gfive the following 
pages, the spirit of which should enter into the soul of 
every minister and student who reads them. 

" For further direction take heed of passing a false judgment 
in this case, a judgment contrary to the truth : for — 

" First, That is to no purpose, it will avail thee nothing, you 
cannot be advantaged by it, for yours is not the supreme judg- 
ment. There will be another and superior judgment to yours, 
that will control and reverse your false judgment, and make it 
signify nothing it is, therefore, to no purpose. And, 



EARNESTNESS. 107 

"Secondly, It is a great piece of insolency, for it will be to op- 
pose your judgment to his certain and most authorized one ; who, 
it this be your case, hath already judged it, and tells you * I know 
you, that you have not the love of God in you.' It belongs to him, 
by office to judge : c The Father hath committed all judgment tc 
the Son/ as a little above in this chapter ; from which, will you 
depose him ? dethrone him ? disannul his judgment ? condemn 
him ? that you may be righteous ? (to borrow that, Job xl. 8.) 

" Thirdly, It is most absurd, supposing such characters as you 
have heard do conclude a man in this case, yet to judge himself 
a lover of God. If against the evidence of such characters a 
man should pronounce the wrong judgment, it would be the most 
unreasonable and absurd thing imaginable ; for then let us but 
suppose, how that wronged judgment must lie related to those 
fore-mentioned characters that have been given you. Let me 
remind you of some of them : he that never put forth the act of 
love to God, cannot say he hath the principle — he that is not in- 
clined to do good to others for the sake of God, 1 John hi. 17 — 
he that indulges himself in the inconsistent love of this world, 
1 John ii. 15 — he that lives not in obedience to his known laws, 
John xiv. 14, 1 John v. 3, with many more. Now if you will 
pass a judgment in your case against the evidence of such char- 
acters, come forth then, let the matter be brought into clear sight, 
put your sense into plain words, and this it will be : — ' I am a 
lover of God, or I have the love of God in me, though I cannot 
tell that ever I put forth one act of love towards him in all my 
life ; I have the love of God in me, though I never knew what it 
meant to do good to any for his sake, against the express words 
of scripture : How dwelleth the love of God in such a man ? I 
have the love of God in me, though I have constantly indulged 
myself in that which he maketh an inconsistent love : Love not 
the world, nor the things which are in the world : if any man 
love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. I have the 
love of God in me, though I would never allow him to rule me, 
though I never kept his commandments with a design to please 
him, and comply with his will. I have the love of God in me, 
though I never valued his love. 1 have the love of God in mq, 



108 SPECIMENS OF 

though I never cared for his image, for liis presence, for his con 
verse, for his interest and honor.' T beseech you consider how 
all this will sound ! Can anything be more absurdly spoken ? 
and shall it be upon such impr labilities or impossibilities as 
these, that any man will think it fit to venture his soul ! ' I will 
pawn my soul upon it, I will run the hazard of my soul upon it, 1 
am a lover of God for all this !' Would you venture anything 
else so besides your soul ? Would you venture a finger so, an 
eye so ? It is to place the name where there is nothing of the 
thing ; it is to place the name of the thing upon its contrary. 
The soul of man cannot be in an indifferency towards God ; but 
if there be not love and propension, there is aversion, and that is 
hatred. And what ! is hatred to be called love ? If you bear 
that habitual disposition of soul towards God, to go all the day 
long with no inclination towards him ; no thought of him ; no de- 
sign to please him, to serve him, to glorify him ; if this be your 
habitual temper and usual course, will you call this love ? Shall 
this contrariety to the love of God be called love to him ? You 
may as well call water fire, or fire water, as so grossly misname 
things here ; and therefore, again, 

" That we may advance somewhat ; plainly and positively pass 
the true judgment. If the characters that you have heard do 
carry the matter so. come at last plainly and positively to pass the 
true judgment of your own case, though it be a sad one ; and tell 
your own souls, ' Oh my soul ! though I must sadly say it, I must 
say it, all things conclude and make against thee : the love of 
God is not in thee.' Why, is it not as good this should be the 
present issue at your own bar, and at the tribunal of your own 
conscience, as before God's judgment-seat ? Why should you 
not concur and fall in with Christ the authorized Judge, whose 
judgment is according to truth ? Why, this is a thing that must 
be done, the case requires it, and God's express word requires it, 

1 Cor. xi. 31. Other previous and preparatory duty plainly en- 
joined, doth by consequence enjoin it, and requires that it follow, 

2 Cor. xiii. 5. What is examination for, but in order to judg- 
ment ? It must, therefore, be done, and I shall show how it must 
be done, and proceed to some further directions. 



EARNESTNESS. 109 

" First, You must do it solemnly. Take yc urstlves aside at 
some fit season or another, inspect your own souls, review your 
life, consider what your wonted frame and your ordinary course 
has been. And if you find by such characters as heretofore were 
given, this is the truth of your case, then let judgment pass upon 
deliberation : Oh my soul ! thou hast not the love of God in thee, 
whatsoever thine appearances hitherto have been ; and whatso- 
ever thy peace and quiet hath been, thou hast not the love of God 
in thee. Let it be done with solemnity. 

" Secondly, Do it in the sight of God as before him, as under 
his eye, as under the eye of Christ. That eye that is as a flame 
of fire, that searches hearts, and tries reins ; arraign thyself be- 
fore him : ' Lord, I have here brought before thee a guilty soul, 
a delinquent soul, wretchedly and horribly delinquent, a soul that 
was breathed into me by thee, an intelligent, understanding soul, 
a soul that hath love in its nature, but a soul that never loved 
thee.' 

" Thirdly, Judge thyself before him as to the fact, and as to 
the fault. As to the fact: 'I have never yet loved thee, O God. 
I own it to thee ; Lord, I accuse, I charge my soul with this be- 
fore thee, this is the truth of the fact, I have not the love of God 
in me.' And charge thyself with the fault : ' Oh horrid creature 
that I am ! I was made by thee, and don't love thee ; thou didst 
breathe into me this reasonable, immortal spirit, and it doth not 
love thee ; it is thine own offspring, and does not love thee. It 
can never be blessed in anything but thee, and it does not love 
thee.' And then hereupon, 

" Fourthly, Join to tins self-judging and self-loathing. That 
we are to judge ourselves is a law laid upon us by the supreme 
Lawgiver, the one Lawgiver, that hath power to save and to de- 
stroy. And his word that enjoins it as plainly tells us what 
must go with it, that this self-judging must be accompanied with 
self-loathing, Ezek. vi. 9 ; xx 43, and xxxvi. 31. Do God that 
right upon thyself that thou mayst tell him, ' Blessed God ! I do 
even hate myself, because I find I have not loved thee ; and I 
cannot but hate myself, and I never will be reconciled to myself, 
till I find I am reconciled to thee.' This is doing justice : doth 

10 



110 SPECIMENS OP 

not the Scripture usually and familiarly so represent to us the 
great turn of the soul to God ; when poor sinners become peni- 
tents and return, that they are brought to hate themselves, and 
loathe themselves in their own eyes ? And is there anything that 
can make a soul so loathsome in itself, or ought to make it so 
loathsome to itself, as not to love God, to be destitute of the love 
of God? And then, 

" Fifthly, Hereupon, too, pity thyself, pity thy own soul. There 
is cause to hate it, to loathe it, and is there no cause to pity it ? 
to lament it ? Doth not this look like a lamentable case, * Oh ! 
what a soul have I, that can love anything else, that can love 
trifles, that can love impurities, that can love sin ; and cannot 
love God, Christ, the most desirable good of souls. What a soul 
have I ! What a monster in the creation of God is this soul of 
mine !' Methinks you should set yourselves, if any of you can 
find this to be the case, to weep over your own souls. Some 
may see cause to say, ' Oh my soul, thou hast in thee other valu- 
able things, thou hast understanding in thee, judgment in thee,, 
wit in thee ; perhaps learning, considerable acquired endowments, 
in thee ; but thou hast not the love of God in thee. I can do 
many other commendable or useful things, I can discourse plausi- 
bly, argue subtilly, I can manage affairs dexterously, but I cannot 
love God. Oh my soul, how great an essential dost thou want 
to all religion, to all duty, to all felicity ! The one thing neces- 
sary thou wantest, thou hast everything but what thou needest 
more than anything, more than all things ; and oh, my soul, what 
is like at this rate to become of thee ? Where art thou to have 
thy eternal abode ? To what regions of horror, and darkness, 
and woe art thou going ? What society can be fit for thee — no 
lover of God ! no lover of God ! what, but of infernal, accursed 
spirits, that are at utmost distance from him, and to whom no 
beam of holy vital light shall ever shine to all eternity ! Thou, oh 
my soul, art self-abandoned to the blackness of darkness forever. 
Thy doom is in thy breast, thy own bosom ; thy no love to God is 
thy own doom, thy eternal doom ; creates thee a present hell, and 
shows whither thou belongest.' 

" Sixthly, * * * All disobedience and rebellion is summed 



EARNESTNESS. Ill 

up in this one word — Having been no love?' of God ; and won't it 
make any man's heart to meditate terror, to think of having such 
a charge as this likely to lie against him in the judgment of that 
day ; that day, when the secrets of all hearts are to be laid open ? 
Every work must then be brought into judgment, and every secret 
thing, whether it be good or evil, Eccles. xii. 14. And it will be 
to the confusion of many a one. It may be your no love of God 
was heretofore a great secret ; you had a heart in which was no 
love of God, but it was a secret, you took not care to have it writ 
in your forehead ; you conversed with men so plausibly, nobody 
took you to be no lover of God, to have a heart disaffected to God. 
But now out comes the secret, that which you kept for a great 
secret all your days ; out comes the secret ; and to have such a 
secret as this disclosed to that vast assembly, before angels and 
men ! Here was a creature, a reasonable creature, an intelli- 
gent soul, that lived upon the divine bounty and goodness so 
many years in the world below, and hid a false, disloyal heart by 
a plausible show and external profession of great devotedness to 
God, all the time of his abode in that world : oh what a fearful 
thing would it be to have this secret so disclosed ! And do you 
think that all the loyal creatures that shall be spectators and 
auditors in the hearing of that great day, will not all conceive a 
just and a loyal indignation against such a one when convicted 
of not loving God ; convicted of not loving him that gave him 
breath, him whose he was, and to whom he belonged, whose 
name he bore ? What a fearful thing will it be to stand con- 
victed so upon such a point as this ! And sure in the meantime 
there is great reason for continual fear, why a man's heart should 
-1 xeditate terror ! One would even think that all the creation 
should be continually every moment in arms against him ! One 
would be afraid that every wind that blows should be a deadly 
blast to destroy me ; that when the sun shines upon me all its 
beams should be turned into vindictive flames to execute ven- 
geance upon me ! I would fear that even the very stones in the 
streets should fly against me, and everything that meets me be 
my death ! For what ? I have not the love of God in me ! 
What, to go about the streets from day to day with a heart void 



112 SPECIMENS OF 

of the love of God ! What a heart have I Fear ought to b@ 
exercised in this case ; we are bid to fear h we do evil against 
a human ruler: ' If thou do that which is evil, be afraid ; for he 
beareth not the sword in vain.' Rom. xiii. 4. But if J be such 
an evil-doer against the supreme Ruler, the Lord of heaven and 
earth, have I not reason to be afraid, and to think sadly with my- 
self, what will the end of this be ?" 

The next extract is from Jonathan Edwards' sermon on 
"Pressing into the Kingdom of God." This extraordinary 
man presents a remarkable proof and illustration that the 
most acute logician and the most subtle metaphysician, 
may be at the same time the most earnest preacher. His 
sermons are some of the most impressive and alarming in 
print, but certainly not a little wanting in the tenderness 
and melting pathos of the gospel of salvation. They may 
be read with admirable effect to teach us how to expound 
the nature and enforce the obligations of the moral law, so 
as to awaken the slumbering conscience of the unconverted 
sinner. His astonishing usefulness shows the adaptation 
of his preaching to the age and state of society in which 
he lived, but his method could not be rigidly followed, ex- 
cept in its earnestness, in the present day. 

u 1. I would address myself to such as yet remain una wakened. 
It is an awful thing that there should be any one person remain- 
ing secure amongst us at such a time as this ; but yet it is to be 
feared that there are some of this sort. I would here a little 
expostulate with such persons. 

" When do you expect that it will be more likely that you 
should be awakened and wrought upon than now ? You are in 
a Christless condition, and yet, without doubt, intend to go to 
heaven ; and therefore intend to be converted some time before 
you die : but this is not to be expected till you are first awakened,, 
and deeply concerned about the welfare of your soul, and brought 
earnestly to seek God's converting grace. And when do you 



EARNESTNESS. 113 

intend that this slial. bo? How do you lay tilings out in your 
own mind, or what projection have you about this matter ? Is it 
ever so likely that a person will be awakened, as at such a time 
as this ? How do we see many, who before were secure, now 
roused out of their sleep, and crying, What shall I do to be saved ? 
But you are yet secure ! Do you flatter yourself that it will be 
more likely you should be awakened when it is a dull and dead 
time ? Do you lay matters out thus in your own mind, that 
though you are senseless when others are generally awakened, 
that yet you shall be awakened when others are generally sense- 
less ? Or do you hope to see another such time of the pouring 
out of God's Spirit hereafter ? And do you think it will be more 
likely that you should be wrought upon then, than now ? And 
why do you think so ? Is it because then you shall be so much 
older than you are now, and so that your heart will be grown 
soiYer and more tender with age ? or because you will then have 
stood out so much longer against the calls of the gospel, and all 
means of grace ? Do you think it more likely that God will give 
you the needed influences of his Spirit then than now, because 
then you will have provoked hirn so much more, and your sin and 
guilt will be so much greater ? And do you think it will be any 
benefit to you to stand it out through the present season of grace, 
as proof against the extraordinary means of awakening there are ? 
Do you think that this will be a good preparation for a saving 
work of the Spirit hereafter ? 

" 2. What means do you expect to be awakened by ? As to 
the awakening, awful things of the word of God, you have had 
those set before you times without number, in the most moving 
manner that the dispensers of the word have been capable of. 
As to particular solemn warnings, directed to those that are in 
your circumstances, you have had them frequently, and have 
them now from time to time. Do you expect to be awakened by 
awful providences ? Those also you have lately had, of the most 
awakening nature, one after another. Do you expect to be moved 
by the deaths of others ? We have lately had repeated instances 
of these. There have been deaths of old and young : the year 
has been remarkable for the deaths of young persons in the bloom 

10* 



114 SPECIMENS OF 

of life, and some of them very sudden deaths. Will the conver 
sion of others move you ? There is indeed scarce anything that 
is found to have so great a tendency to stir persons up as this ; 
and this you have been tried with of late in frequent instances, 
but are hitherto proof against it. Will a general pouring out of 
the Spirit, and seeing a concern about salvation amongst all sorts 
of people, do it ? This means you now have, but without effect. 
Yea, you have all these things together ; you have the solemn 
warnings of God's word, and awful instances of death, and the 
conversion of others, and see a general concern about salvation ; 
but all together do not move you to any great concern about your 
own precious, immortal, and miserable soul. Therefore consider 
by what means it is that you expect ever to be aw T akened. 

" You have heard that it is probable some who are now awak- 
ened, will never obtain salvation ; how dark then does it look upon 
you that remain stupidly unawakened ! Those, come to adult 
age, who are not moved at such a time as this, have reason to 
fear whether they are not given up to judicial hardness. I do 
not say they have reason to conclude it, but they have reason to 
fear it. How dark doth it look upon you, that God comes and 
knocks at so many persons' doors, and misses yours ! that God 
is giving the strivings of his Spirit so generally amongst us, while 
you are left senseless ! 

" 3. Do you expect to obtain salvation without ever seeking it ? 
If you are sensible that there is a necessity of your seeking in 
order to obtaining, and ever intend to seek, one would think you 
could not avoid it at such a time as this. Inquire therefore 
whether you intend to go to heaven, living all your days a secure, 
negligent, careless life. — Or, 

" 4. Do you think you can bear the damnation of hell ? Do 
you imagine that you can tolerably endure the devouring fire and 
everlasting burnings ? Do you hope that you shall be able to 
grapple with the vengeance of God Almighty, when he girds 
himself with strength, and clothes himself with wrath ? Do you 
think to strengthen yourself against God, and to be able to make 
your part good with him ? 1 Cor. x. 22, * Do we provoke the 
Lord to jealousy ? are we stronger than he ?' Do you flatter 



EARNESTNESS. 115 

yourself that you shah find out ways for your ease and support, 
and to make it out tolerably well, to bear up your spirit in those 
everlasting burnings that are prepared for the devil and his 
angels? Ezek. xxii. 14. 'Can thine heart endure, or can thine 
hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee V It is 
a difficult thing to conceive what such Christless persons think, 
that are unconcerned at su^h a time." 

The following extract is from that first of all preachers, 
Whitfield ; and who that considers the circumstances 
under which these naming periods were enunciated, and 
the feeling and action which accompanied their delivery, 
can wonder at the effects they produced ? 

Beseeching Sinners. " O my brethren, my heart is enlarged 
towards you. I trust I feel something of that hidden but power- 
ful presence of Christ, whilst I am preaching to you. Indeed it 
is sweet, it is exceedingly comfortable. All the harm I wish you, 
who without cause are my enemies, is, that you felt the like. 
Believe me, though it would be hell to my soul to return to a 
natural state again, yet I would willingly change states with you 
for a little while, that you might know what it is to have Christ 
dwelling in your hearts by faith. Do not turn your backs ; do not 
let the devil hurry you away ; be not afraid of convictions ; do not 
think worse of the doctrine because preached without the church 
walls. Our Lord, in the days of his flesh, preached on a mount, 
in a ship, and in a field ; and I am persuaded many have felt his 
gracious presence here. Indeed, we speak what we know. Do 
not reject the kingdom of God against yourselves ; be so wise as 
to receive our witness. I cannot I will not let you go ; stay a 
liitle, let us reason together. However lightly you may esteem 
your souls, I know our Lord has set an unspeakable value on 
them. He thought them worthy of his most precious blood. I 
beseech you therefore, O sinners, be ye reconciled to God. I 
hope you do not fear being accepted in the Beloved. Behold, he 
calleth you ; behold, he prevents and follows you with his mercy 



116 SPECIMENS OP 

and hath sent forth his servants into the highways and hedges, 
to compel you to come in. Remember, then, that at such an hour, 
of such a day, in such a year, in this place, you were all told what 
you ought to think concerning Jesus Christ. If you now perish, 
it will not be for lack of knowledge ; I am free from the blood of 
you all. You cannot say I have, like legal preachers, been requir- 
ing you to make brick without straw. I have not bidden you to 
make yourselves saints, and then come to God ; but I have offered 
you salvation on as cheap terms as you can desire. I have 
offered you Christ's whole wisdom, Christ's whole righteousness, 
Christ's whole sanctification and eternal redemption, if you will 
but believe on him. If you say you cannot believe, you say 
right ; for faith, as well as every other blessing, is the gift of 
God : but then wait upon God, and who knows but he may have 
mercy on thee ? Why do we not entertain more loving thoughts 
of Christ ? Or do you think he will have mercy on others, and 
not on you ? But are you not sinners ? And did not Jesus 
Christ come into the world to save sinners ? If you say you are 
the chief of sinners, I answer, that will be no hindrance to your 
salvation ; indeed it will not, if you lay hold on him by faith. 
Read the Evangelists, and see how kindly he behaved to his disci- 
ples, who fled from and denied him : * Go tell my brethren,' says 
he. He did not say, Go tell those traitors ; but, ' Go tell my 
brethren, and Peter ;' as though he had said, Go tell my brethren 
in general, and poor Peter in particular, c that I am risen :' O 
comfort his poor drooping heart, tell him I am reconciled to him ; 
bid him weep no more so bitterly : for though with oaths and 
curses he thrice denied me, yet I have died for his sins, I am risen 
again for his justification : I freely forgive him all. Thus slow 
to anger and of great kindness, was our all-merciful High Priest. 
And do you think he has changed his nature, and forgets poor 
sinners, now he is exalted to the right hand of God ? No, he is 
the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, and sitteth there only to 
make intercession for us. Come then, ye harlots ; come, ye pub- 
licans ; come, ye most abandoned of sinners, come and believe on 
Jesus Christ. Though the whole world despise you and cast you 
out, yet he will not disdain to take you up. O amazing, O infi- 



EARNESTNESS. 117 

nitely condescending love ! even you he will not be ashamed to 
call his brethren. How will you escape, if you neglect such a 
glorious offer of salvation ? What would the damned spirits, 
now in the prison of hell, give, if Christ was so freely offered to 
their souls ! And why are not we lifting up our eyes in torments ? 
Does any one out of this great multitude dare say, he does not 
deserve damnation ? If not, why are we left, and others taken 
away by death ? What is this but an instance of God's free 
grace, and a sign of his good will towards us ? Let God's good- 
ness lead us to repentance ! O let there be joy in heaven over 
some of you repenting ! Though we are in afield, I am per- 
suaded the blessed angels are hovering now around us, and do 
long, c as the hart panteth after the water-brooks,' to sing an an- 
them at your conversion. Blessed be God, I hope their joy will 
be fulfilled. An awful silence appears amongst us. I have good 
hope that the words which the Lord has enabled me to speak in 
your ears this day, have not altogether fallen to the ground. 
Your tears and deep attention are an evidence that the Lord God 
is amongst us of a truth. Come, ye pharisees, come and see, in 
spite of your fanatical rage and fury, the Lord Jesus is getting 
himself the victory. And, brethren, I speak the truth in Christ, I 
lie not : if one soul of you, by the blessing of God, be brought to 
think savingly of Jesus Christ this day, I care not if my enemies 
were permitted to carry me to prison, and put my feet fast in the 
stocks, as soon as I have delivered this sermon. Brethren, my 
heart's desire and prayer to God is, that you may be saved. For 
this cause I follow my Master without the camp. J care not how 
much of his sacred reproach I bear, so that some of you be con- 
verted from the errors of your ways. I rejoice, yea v and I will re- 
joice. Ye men, ye devils, do your worst : the Lord who sent will 
support me. And when Christ, who is our life, and whom I have 
now been preaching, shall appear, I also, together with his de- 
spised little ones, shall appear with him in glory. And then what 
will you think of Christ ? I know what you will think of him. 
You will think him to be the fairest among ten thousand : you 
will then think him to be a just and sin-avenging Judge. Be ye 
then persuaded to kiss him lest he be angry, and so vou be ban- 



118 SPECIMENS ?F 

ished forever from the presence of the Lord. Behold, I come to 
you as the angel did to Lot. Flee, flee for your lives ; haste, lin- 
ger no longer in your spiritual Sodom, for otherwise you will be 
eternally destroyed. Numbers, no doubt, there are amongst you, 
that may regard me no more than Lot's sons-in-law regarded 
him. I am persuaded I seem to some of you as one that mock- 
eth : but I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not ; as sure as fire and 
brimstone was rained from the Lord out of heaven, to destroy 
Sodom and Gomorrah, so surely, at the great day, shall the vials 
of God's wrath be poured on you, if you do not think seriously of, 
and act agreeably to, the gospel of the Lord's Christ. Behold, I 
have told you before ; and I pray God, all you that forget him 
may seriously think of what has been said, before he pluck you 
away, and there be none to deliver you." 

Not to multiply these extracts unnecessarily, I give one 
more from a preacher who is, perhaps, without any excep- 
tion, the most impressive living example of earnestness, 
both in matter and manner ; I mean Mr. Parsons, of York. 

" O, do not deceive yourselves ! I would strive to tear away 
the veil, I tell you, O ye whose ' goodness has been as a morning 
cloud, and as the early dew that goeth away,' — if unchanged you 
die, and if unchanged you stand before the dread tribunal, where 
an account must be rendered of all providences, all immunities, 
and all feelings, you will be found fatally wanting, and will hear 
a sentence of condemnation that will consign you to realms of 
everlasting despair. As true as that Jehovah lives, is it that he 
will thus execute the fierceness of his indignation. Abodes of 
sorrow await you, where every past benefit will but be an instru- 
ment of torture ; where memory and conscience will hold up the 
mirror of by-gone privilege and promise, of abused mercy, of for- 
sworn and perjured vows, only that remorse may strike upon the 
soul its more than scorpion sting, and where grace and hope can 
never alleviate the wailings that will reverberate through the dun- 
geons of outer darkness forever and forever ! Your doom will be 
more tremendous, precisely in proportion to the means you pos- 



EARNESTNESS. 119 

sessed, and the signs you gave, of averting it ; can any doom be 
worse than yours ? When these ( terrors of the Lord' are ex- 
pounded, say if there be not an argument of mighty force why you 
should now beware, and why you should now hear the voice of 
God, lest you should be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, and 
lest he should swear in his wrath that you shall not enter into his 
rest ! 

" But once more to appeal to those for whom this address has 
been particularly designed. That such there are, J know. I 
could turn round, and fix my eye, and rest my hand, on persons 
by whom, if so arraigned, the accusation of the text could not be 
denied or evaded. You have been again visited by the instrumen- 
tality which is adapted for the impression of the heart. Do not 
reject it : do not let it have that insufficient influence which is 
but to be dissipated for the world, and which makes the end worse 
than the beginning. No — nothing will avail but the entire sur- 
render of the soul to him who gave it — the determination to live 
to Christ, and to glory only in his cross. In the name of the 
great God, who is not willing that any should perish, but that all 
should come^ to repentance, I do now abjure you, that you trifle 
not a moment longer, that you delay not a moment longer, that 
you resist not a moment longer: 'Come and return unto the 
Lord :' let this be a season of consideration ; let this be a season 
of repentance ; let this be a season of prayer ; let this be a season 
of dedication to your God : — noiv, my hearers, now ! 

" — Minister and people must part once more. The book must 
be closed again ; the voice must be silent again ; the congrega- 
tion must retire again. O Spirit of God, perform thy work ! 
4 Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these 
slain, that they may live !' Let there not be one here before thee, 
of whom, when yonder heavens shall be on lire, and when this 
earth shall be burned up, it shall be found — that their ' goodness 
was as a morning cloud, and that as the early dew it went 
away !' " 

These extracts will illustrate what I mean by earnestness, 
better than any langrige which I have employed or could 



120 SPECIMENS OF 

select, and they appear to me to answei well to the apos- 
tolic method of beseeching entreaty. I do not of course 
insist that the pulpit should be restricted to the specific 
variety of preaching which we designate the hortatory 
method, under which classification these specimens must 
all be placed. There should be exegesis, as well as appli- 
cation ; exposition, as well as expostulation. The judg- 
ment must be enlightened in order that the heart may be 
impressed, and the conscience awakened, and the believer 
edified, no less than the sinner converted ; and for this a 
less impassioned strain of preaching will not only suffice, 
but indeed be more appropriate. Yet with regard to that 
portion of our public ministrations, and it should be no 
small portion of it, which has reference to the conversion of 
the impenitent, where shall we find better models on which 
to construct our sermons than the Doolittles, the Howes, 
the Baxters, and the Whitfields, of former times, so far 
at least as their intense earnestness is concerned ? It is 
true the moderns have improved upon these men in mat- 
ters of taste, in reference to which we cannot of course 
hold them up for imitation. In their numerous and com- 
plicated divisions and subdivisions, through which, as so 
many little rills and channels, they poured the current of 
their thought, instead of causing it to roll onward in the 
channel of their sermon with the majestic flow of a noble 
river ; in their quaintnesses and quirks ; in their fantastic 
imagery and uncouth diction ; in their occasional grossness 
and vulgarity, in which some of them were but too prone 
to indulge — they are to be studiously avoided. Yet even 
in reference to some of these things, it may be affirmed, 
that, though, in their free and reckless resort to every mode 
of stimulating attention, they were very often betrayed 
into great violations of taste, the very same audacity of 



EARNESTNESS. 121 

genius often produced felicities of imagery and diction, 
with which, neither for beauty nor effect, will the blame- 
less common-place and the accurate insipidity of many mod- 
ern discourses bear any comparison, For pregnancy of 
thought, for knowledge of the word of God, for raciness of 
style, for evangelical sentiment, for anatomy of the human 
heart, for closeness of application, and especially for inten- 
sity of feeling, where shall we find their equals ? They 
preached to their congregations, and not merely "before 
them: they felt that the objects of their addresses were 
immortal souls in danger of being lost, and knew their 
business in the pulpit was to save those souls from perdi- 
tion : they preached as if they expected there and then to 
achieve the great work of conversion : and felt as if the 
eternal destinies of their hearers were suspended on the 
manner in which they discharged their duties, and as if 
they were to ascend the next moment, after they had 
finished their sermons, to give an account of them at the 
bar of God. Do not the extracts given, and which are 
but a sample of their works, bear out these assertions ? 
This is what we want more of in modern preaching. Thpre 
may be, and should be, more of classic elegance, more of 
logical arrangement, philosophic precision, of vigorous and 
clear argumentation ; but still, at the same time, combined 
with this, there should also be the pointed interrogation, 
the pungent appeal, the bold apostrophe, the gush of feel- 
ing, the forcible expostulation, and the tender invitation: 
now the gentle flow of deep, and solemn, and placid thought, 
and then the torrent rush of impassioned sentiment : the 
beautiful and harmonious combination of reason, imagina- 
tion, and affection : and all this employed to carry out the 
purpose for which the gospel is to be preached, and to win 
souls to Christ. Those who were privileged to hear Mr. 

6 



122 SPECIMENS OF 

Hall, in his best days, deliver some of his most popular 
and powerful discourses, will not fail to recollect how strik- 
ingly he combined the intense earnestness of the passages 
just quoted, with the chaste and classic elegance of our best 
writers ; and thus, considering the evangelical strain of his 
preaching, may be said to have poured forth a torrent of 
the water of life, clear as crystal. He reminded you of 
one who, in his yearnings for the salvation of sinners, 
seemed to feel that language was too feeble an instrument 
for such a purpose, and who, notwithstanding his sovereign 
command and exquisite selection of terminology, was strag- 
gling to burst the barrier by which words limit the com- 
munication of thought, that he might, by a still more direct 
and facile method, reach and grasp the soul of his hearers. 
There is, however, hope that our old theological writers 
will not be quite forgotten or neglected, while such men 
as Professor Stowell, of Rotherham College, shall em- 
ploy their talents in writing prefaces to reprints of such 
works as those of Thomas Adams, and shall lend their 
authority to recommend the perusal of these monuments 
of sacred genius. Beautifully and no less correctly has he 
said, " As Edwards constrains to closeness of thought ; 
as Howe inspires sublimity of sentiment ; as Bates lights 
up the soul with a soft and silvery light ; as Owen lades 
the mind with a harvest of rich knowledge ; as Taylor 
cheers the imagination with a vintage of delicious grapes ; 
as Baxter fires the soul with longings for salvation, first 
of ourselves and then of others ; — even so does Adams 
lead to those springs of graphic power, of dramatic gran- 
deur, and of subduing pathos, of which it is the fear of 
many that they are dried up. We believe they are not. 
We cannot but think there are minds now opening on the 
awful solemnities of the Christian ministry to whom this 



EARNESTNESS. 123 

example will be inciting : let them look at things with 
their own eyes, ponder them in silent and lonely thought, 
pray over the fruits of such meditations, till they kindle 
into living pictures ; and so let them pour out their feel- 
ings in the best words they can find ; there will then be no 
just complaint of the war t of power and originality in the 
English pulpit." 



CHAPTER VI. 

EARNESTNESS OF MANNER, CONTINUED, 

AS MANIFESTED IN THE DELIVERY OF SERMONS. 

Br the delivery of sermons is meant voice and gesture, 
or what Demosthenes called action ; who, on being asked 
what was the first excellence of an orator, replied, " Action :" 
what the second, " Action :" what the third, " Action." An 
impressive admonition, this, from such an authority, to all 
preachers, on the importance of that part of our subject 
which we are now considering. 

After the death of that flaming seraph, Mr. McCheyne, 
there was found upon his desk an unopened note from one 
who had heard his last sermon, to this effect : " Pardon a 
stranger for addressing to you a few lines. I heard you 
preach last Sabbath evening, and it pleased God to bless 
that sermon to my soul. It was not so much what you 
said, as your manner of speaking it, that struck me. I 
saw in you a beauty of holiness I never saw before." 

This is only one instance out of ten thousand, in which 
the earnestness of a preacher's manner has secured that 
attention to his matter which would not otherwise have 
been paid to it. The power of oratory has its foundations 
in the principles of our nature. It is not merely that ideas 
are conveyed by articulate language through the ear to 



EARNESTNESS IN DELIVERY. 125 

the mind, but that also impression is produced on the af- 
fections by agreeable tones and pleasant modulations of 
the voice. Hence the power of music : and what is human 
speech but music ? No instrument has ever yet been con- 
structed which can emit sounds so exquisitely moving as 
the human voice. Art is in this effect still below nature. 
True it is, that we must go to the best of voices for this 
superiority ; but even in voices far below the best, there is 
an expression of the various passions which no instruments 
can equal. All nations, therefore, savage as well as civil- 
ized, have confessed the powers of oratory, not only as a 
vehicle of instruction, but as a means of impression. It 
is vain to pretend that matter is, or ought to be, every 
thing, and manner nothing. Truth, it may be said, ought 
to make its own way, independently of the accompaniments 
of good elocution and graceful action. So it should, but 
then these things are necessary, in many cases, to gain for 
it attention, and to secure that due consideration without 
which it can make no impression. Manner is, so to speak, 
the harbinger and herald of matter, summoning the facul- 
ties of the soul to give audience to the truth to be commu- 
nicated, and holding the mind in a state of abstraction from 
all other subjects that would divert the thoughts and pre- 
vent impression. It is not only the more illiterate and fee- 
ble-minded, not only the multitude who are led by feeling 
more than by reason, that are influenced by good oratory, 
but men of the sturdiest intellect and the most philosophic 
cast of mind. The soul of the sage as well as of the sav- 
age is formed with a susceptibility to the power and influ- 
ence of music, and therefore also to the power and influ- 
ence of elocution. The importance of manner is conse- 
quently great, yea, far greater than either tutors or preach- 
ers have been disposed to admit. I am aware that a good 

11* 



126 EARNESTNESS 

voice is necessary to good speaking, but not always to 
earnest speaking. Nature must do much to make a grace- 
ful and finished orator ; but still, in the absence of this, an 
ardent mind, burning for the salvation of immortal souls, 
can, by an impressive earnestness of manner, be a more in- 
tense and effective speaker, notwithstanding naturally weak 
and unimpressive organs of speech, than the possessor of 
the finest voice, who is destitute of a vivacious and ardent 
enunciation ; just as an exquisite performer can bring bet- 
ter music out of a bad instrument, than a bad musician 
can out of a good one. What may be done, where the 
mind is resolutely bent on accomplishing it, for supplying 
deficiencies and correcting faults in elocution, Demosthenes 
has taught us ; and were half or a tenth part of the pains 
taken by us to obtain a powerful and effective method of 
pulpit address, which were submitted to by this prince of 
orators to become an effective speaker ; were we as much 
set upon it as he was, and were we to give ourselves to the 
same means, by declaiming to the waves of the sea, or to 
the winds of heaven, determining to overcome every ob- 
stacle, we too should be orators, and that in a still better 
cause than his. And surely if ambition, or patriotism, 
prompted the Athenian and the Roman orator to such 
studies and such efforts for self-improvement, ought not 
the love of souls, zeal for God, and the interests of eternity, 
to prompt us to similar endeavors ? Did they cultivate 
elocution with such unwearied perseverance to counteract 
the designs of Philip, or to defeat the conspiracies of Cata- 
line, and shall we not do it, to destroy the works of the 
devil, and to advance the kingdom of the Redeemer ? 

It is impossible not to know how much the popularity 
of some preachers depends upon their manner : they do 
not say better, or more striking things, than other men ; 



IN DELIVERY. 127 

but they say them in a better and more striking manner. 
There is a pathos in their tones, a power in their looks, a 
gracefulness in their gestures, which other men have never 
studied, and therefore have never acquired. This was 
eminently the case with Whitfield, the greatest of 
preachers. Much of the wondrous power of that extraor- 
dinary man lay in his voice and action. I have already 
given an extract from his sermons to illustrate his manner 
as regards style of composition, but who that never heard 
him, or indeed who that had, could illustrate his manner 
as regards delivery ? Think of such paragraphs as those 
I have just quoted, delivered in a manner appropriate to 
their nature ; with an eye melting into tears ; a voice trem- 
ulous with emotion — shrill, yet full, now swelling into thun- 
der, and then dying away again into soft whispers ; one 
moment apostrophizing to God, and the next piercing the 
sinner's conscience with an appeal that was as sharp ar- 
rows of the Almighty ; at one time pouring out a stream 
of impassioned pity for the sinner, and the next moment a 
torrent of burning indignation against his sin ; his very 
hands all the while, and every gesture, seeming to help his 
laboring soul and his matchless elocution : and all this, to 
the conviction of his hearers, not the trickery of an artifi- 
cial rhetoric, nor the effort of a man striving after popu- 
larity, but the spontaneous gushing forth of a heart agoniz- 
ing for the salvation of their immortal souls ! What ora- 
tory must that have been which extorted from the skeptical 
and fastidious Hume the confession that it was worth going 
twenty miles to hear it — which interested the infidel Bo- 
lingbroke, and once warmed even the cold and cautious 
Franklin into enthusiasm ? In those discourses which 
roused a slumbering nation from the torpor of lukewarm- 
ness, and breathed new life into its dying piety, you will 



128 EARNESTNESS 

find no profound speculation, no subtle reasoning, no meta- 
physical disquisition ; for these never formed, and never 
can form, the staple of pulpit eloquence : but you will find 
" thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," and which, 
when enunciated with the magic of his wondrous voice, 
spoke, by the blessing of God, life into thousands dead in 
trespasses and sins. As a proof of the ail-subduing power 
of his oratory, take the following scene, extracted from his 
Life and Times by the Rev. Robert Philip : — 

"In February, 1742, Whitfield returned to London, where 
* life and power soon flew all around' him again ; ' the Redeemer 
getting himself victory daily in many hearts.' The renewed 
progress of the Gospel at this time in London, he calls emphati- 
cally , ' the Redeemer's stately steps.' Well he might ; for dur- 
ing the Easter holidays, ; Satan's booths' in Moorfields poured out 
their thousands to hear him. This determined him to dare all 
hazards on Whit-Monday, the great gala-day of vanity and vice 
there. Gillies' account of this enterprise, although not incor- 
rect nor uninteresting, is very incomplete, considering the fame 
•f the feat at the time. The following account is from the pen 
of Whitfield himself; and written whilst he was reporting, at 
home and abroad, his marriage. 

" For many years, from one end of Moorfields to the other, 
booths of all kinds have been erected for mountebanks, players, 
puppet-shows, and such like. With a heart bleeding with com- 
passion for so many thousands led captive by the devil at his will, 
on Whit-Monday, at six o'clock in the morning, attended by a 
large congregation of praying people, I ventured to lift up a 
standard amongst them in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Per- 
haps there were about ten thousand in waiting, not for me, but 
for Satan's instruments to amuse them. Glad was I to find, that 
I had for once, as it were, got the start of the devil. I mounted 
my field pulpit ; almost all flocked immediately around it. I 
preached on these words, * As Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
wilderness, so shall the Son of man be lifted up,' etc. They gazed, 



IN DELIVERY. 129 

they listened, they wept ; and I believe that many felt themselves 
stung with deep conviction for their past sins. All was hushed 
and solemn. Being thus encouraged, I ventured out again at 
noon ; but what a scene ! The fields, the whole fields seemed, 
ill a bad sense of the word, all white, ready, not for the Redeem- 
er's, but Beelzebub's harvest. All his agents were in full motion, 
drummers, trumpeters, merrry-andrews, masters of puppet-shows, 
exhibitors of wild beasts, players, etc., etc., all busy in entertain- 
ing their respective auditories. I suppose there could not be less 
than twenty or thirty thousand people. My pulpit was fixed on the 
opposite side, and immediately, to their great mortification, they 
found the number of their attendants sadly lessened. Judging that, 
like Saint Paul, I should now be called as it were to fight with 
beasts at Ephesus, I preached from these words : ' Great is Diana 
of the Ephesians.' You may easily guess that there was some 
noise among the craftsmen, and that I was honored with having a 
few stones, dirt, rotten eggs, and pieces of dead cats thrown at me, 
whilst engaged in calling them from their favorite, but lying van- 
ities. My soul was indeed among lions : but far the greatest part 
of my congregation, which was very large, seemed for awhile to 
be turned into lambs. This encouraged me to give notice that I 
would preach again at six o'clock in the evening. I came, I saw, 
but what ? thousands and thousands more than before, if possible, 
still more deeply engaged in their unhappy diversions ; but some 
thousands amongst them waiting as earnestly to hear the gospel. 
This Satan could not brook. One of his choicest servants 
was exhibiting, trumpeting on a large stage ; but as soon as the 
people saw me in my black robes and my pulpit, I think all to a 
man left him and ran to me. For a while I was enabled to lift 
up my voice like a trumpet, and many heard the joyful sound. 
God's people kept praying, and the enemy's agents made a kind 
of roaring at some distance from our camp. At length they 
approached nearer, and the merry-andrew (attended by others, 
who complained that they had taken many pounds less that day 
on account of my preaching) got upon a man's shoulders, and, 
advancing near the pulpit, attempted to slash me with a long heavv 
whip several times, but always with the violence of his motion 



130 EARNESTNESS 

tumbled down Soon a terwards they got a recruiting serjeant 
with his drum, etc., to pass through the congregation. I gave 
the word of command, and ordered that way might be made for 
the king's officer. The ranks opened while all marched quietly 
through, and then closed again. Finding those efforts to fail, a 
large body quite on the opposite side assembled together, and 
having got a large pole for their standard, advanced towards us j 
with steady and formidable steps, till they came very near the 
skirts of our hearing, praying, and almost undaunted congrega- 
tion. I saw, gave warning, and prayed to the Captain of our 
salvation for present support and deliverance. He heard and 
answered ; for just as they approached us with looks full of re- 
sentment, I know not by what accident, they quarrelled among 
themselves, threw down their staff, and went their way, leaving, 
however, many of their company behind, who, before we had done, 
I trust, were brought over to join the besieged party. I think I 
continued in praying, preaching, and singing, (for the noise was 
too great at times to preach) about three hours. 

" We then retired to the Tabernacle, with my pockets full of 
notes from persons brought under concern, and read them amidst 
the praises and spiritual acclamations of thousands, who joined 
with the holy angels in rejoicing that so many sinners were 
snatched, in such an unexpected, unlikely place and manner, out 
of the very jaws of the devil. This was the beginning of the 
Tabernacle society. Three hundred and fifty awakened souls 
were received in one day, and I believe the number of notes ex- 
ceeded a thousand ; but I must have done, believing you want to 
retire to join in mutual praise and thanksgiving to God and tho 
Lamb." 

I shall perhaps hazard my reputation as a judge of ora- 
torical power, when I venture to pronounce this the great- 
est achievement of elocution which the history of the 
world presents, next to the splendid triumphs of the apos- 
tle Peter's sermon, over the murderers of Christ on the 
day of Pentecost. Who that considers the spot on which 



IN DELIVERY. 131 

Wr.iTFiELD then stood ; the scenes by which he was then 
surrounded ; the discordant noises of the motley crew, 
which then rung in his ears, and in the ears of Ins audi- 
ence ; who, in short, that recollects what is the wild uproar 
and the hurly-burly of a London popular fair, must not 
st&nd astonished, first at the courage of the man who could 
erect his pulpit, and preach a sermon in such a scene ; and 
then wonder still more at the marvellous success of his 
effort, in the conversion of hundreds of souls by that one 
discourse ? What, I ask, was the effect of the orations of 
Demosthenes on the Athenians, in rousing them against 
Philip of Macedon, compared with this ? The illustrious 
Grecian had everything which the scenery, and the historic 
associations that connected themselves with it, everything 
which the prepared mind of his audience could give, in the 
way of advantage, to his splendid declamation and its 
success ; but the Christian orator had to combat with, and 
to triumph over, everything that seemed inharmonious 
with his theme, and opposed to the accomplishment of his 
object : and what must have been the magic power of that 
elocution which could blind the eyes and deafen the ears of 
an audience to the sights and sounds so near them, and 
produce such fixedness of attention, and power of abstrac- 
tion, even there, as to leave them at liberty for those 
processes of thought, which resulted in the conversion of 
hundreds to God ! 

And to what, in the way of instrumentality, shall we 
attribute this astonishing effect ? I answer to the power 
of his wonderful oratory. This fact has stood for a cen- 
tury upon record, and yet we have been slow to learn 
from it the lessons it is adapted to teach ; and among these 
lessons the chief is the effect produced by a commanding 
method of addijss, in circumstances apparently the most 



132 EARNESTNESS 

unlikely for such a result. I am not calling upon my 
brethren to imitate this daring attack upon the very citadel 
of Satan : even Whitfield never, I believe, repeated it, 
and perhaps ought never to have attempted it ; but my 
object is to show the power of voice and action, and the 
nature of ministerial earnestness. 

I now bring forward another proof of this, which, if it 
be less grand and commanding in itself, is perhaps as likely 
to be useful to the readers of this little work, because it is 
an instance brought nearer to their own times, and to the 
level of their own circumstances : I mean the truly inter- 
esting and much lamented Mr. Spencer, of Liverpool. In 
reference to this transcendent young preacher, Mr. Hall 
remarks, "The writer of this deeply regrets his never 
having had an opportunity of witnessing his extraordinary 
powers ; but from all he has heard from the best judges, 
he can entertain no doubt that his talents in the pulpit were 
unrivalled, and that, had his life been spared, he would, in 
all probability, have carried the art of preaching to a greater 
perfection than it ever attained, at least in this kingdom. 
His eloquence appears to have been of the purest stamp, 
effective, not ostentatious ; consisting less in the preponder- 
ance of any one quality requisite to form a public speaker, 
than in an exquisite combination of them all ; whence 
resulted an extraordinary power of impression, which was 
greatly aided by a natural and majestic elocution." In 
this last expression Mr. Hall has disclosed much of the 
secret of Mr. Spencer's popularity and usefulness : " a 
natural and majestic elocution," accompanied with a most 
engaging countenance and form, setting forth, with simple 
and unaffected earnestness of manner, the grand doctrines 
of evangelical truth, constituted the charm, and led to the 
success, of this most captivating preacher of modern times. 



IN DELIVERY. 133 

Let the young ministers of this age read his Life and 
Remains, as published by his gifted successor, Dr. Raf- 
fles, and also his posthumous sermons which have been 
since given to the world, and they will find nothing what- 
ever of extraordinary genius ; no lofty eloquence, in the 
usual acceptation of that term ; no profound speculation ; 
no splendid imagery or diction ; — but at every step they 
will meet with the doctrine of Christ crucified set forth 
with manly vigor, in plain, perspicuous language ; the 
utterances of a mind well instructed in the way of salva- 
tion, and of a heart overflowing for the good of his fellow- 
creatures. To what then shall we attribute, under God, 
his success, not only in filling the large town in which he 
lived, and the nation at large, with his fame, but what was 
infinitely more important in itself, and far more eagerly 
coveted by him, in bringing so many souls to Christ? 
There is but one answer to be given to this, and that is, it 
was the fascination of his manner. He was in earnest. 
The stream of his simple, elegant, but by no means pro- 
found thought, flowed forth with a resistless impetuosity 
that carried away his hearers before it. I know no more 
important lesson to be learnt, no inference more valuable 
to be drawn from the short life of this most interesting 
young man, so mysteriously cut off at the very commence- 
ment of his career, than the vast importance of an anima- 
ted manner of preaching the gospel. 

We may here advert to another individual, who was 
considered to be one of the most impressive preachers, in 
a particular way, of his times, the late Mr. Toller, of 
Kettering, and who also, no doubt, owed much to his mode 
of address, for the effect which his sermons produced : 
and the effect in this instance proves that vehemence, bois- 
terousncss, and vociferation, are not essential to earnestness 

12 



134 EARNESTNESS 

and Jeep impression, for nothing could be more calm and 
more subdued, though nothing more solemnly commanding, 
than his whole demeanor in the pulpit. His printed ser- 
mons are characterized by manly strength of thought, ut- 
tered in language of great perspicuity, though not irradiated 
by the coruscations of what might be termed a brilliant 
genius. " A noble simplicity and careless grandeur," says 
Mr. Hall, with whom he lived on terms of most intimate 
friendship, "were the distinguishing features of his elo- 
quence." There was an irresistible charm in his manner, 
which threw a spell over all his hearers, and which fasci- 
nated alike the learned and illiterate ; he made the latter 
to understand, and the former to feel. I never heard him 
but once, but it was a memorable occasion, on the ordina- 
tion of Mr. Robertson, of Stretton, when Mr. Hall deliv- 
ered the admirable charge which was afterwards published 
under the title of " The Difficulties and Encouragements of 
the Christian Minister." It is impossible ever to forget, 
and equally so to describe, the effect produced by two such 
preachers on such an occasion : it was the first time I had 
ever heard either of them, and the last that I ever heard 
Mr. Toller, and it almost seemed as if I had never heard 
preaching before : both were excited, no doubt, and stimu- 
lated to do their best, not only by the occasion, but by the 
presence of each other. The terms employed by Mr. 
Toller's biographer were the most appropriate that could 
be selected to describe his style and manner, — " simplicity 
and careless grandeur." It was impossible not to listen; 
neither eye nor ear played truant for a moment, while he 
was preaching : his delivery was not the rushing torrent of 
impassioned eloquence which gushed afterwards from the 
lips of his wonderful fellow-laborer, but the majestic, 
silent flow of a noble river. " In the power of awakening 



IN DELIVERY. 135 

pathetic emotions," says Mr. Hall, in his Memoir, " he has 
excelled any preacher it has been my lot to hear. Often 
have I seen a whole congregation melted under him like 
wax before the sun : my own feelings on more than one 
occasion, have approached to an overpowering agitation. 
The effect was produced, apparently, with perfect ease. No 
elaborate preparation, no peculiar vehemence or intensity 
of tones, no artful accumulation of pathetic images, led the 
way : the mind was captivated and subdued, it hardly 
knew how. Though it will not be imagined that this 
tiiumph of popular eloquence could be habitual, much 
less constant, it may be safely affirmed that a large propor- 
tion of Mr. Toller's discourses afforded some indications 
of these powers." The following is Mr. Hall's descrip- 
tion of the effect of two sermons preached in his hearing 
by this distinguished man : — 

" It was about this period (1796) that my acquaintance with 
him commenced. I had known him previously, and occasionally 
heard him ; but it was at a season when I was not qualified to 
form a correct estimate of his talents. At the time referred to, 
we were engaged to preach a double lecture at Thrapstone, nine 
miles from Kettering ; and never shall I forget the surprise and 
pleasure with which I listened to an expository discourse, from 
1 Peter, ii. 1, 3. The richness, the unction, the simple majesty 
which pervaded his address, produced a sensation which I never 
felt before : it gave me a new view of the Christian ministry. 
But the effect, powerful as it was, was not to be compared with 
that which I experienced on hearing him preach at the half-yearly 
meeting of the Association, at Bedford. The text which he 
selected was peculiarly solemn and impressive ; his discourse was 
founded on 2 Peter, i. 13, 15, ' Yea, I think it meet as long as I 
am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remem- 
brance : knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernable, 
etc. The effect of this discours3 on the audience was such as I 



136 EARNESTNESS 

have never witnessed before or since. It was undoubtedly very 
much aided by the peculiar circumstances of the speaker, who 
was judged to be far advanced in a decline, and who seemed to 
speak under the impression of its being the last time he should 
address his brethren on such an occasion. The aspect of the 
preacher, pale, emaciated, standing apparently on the verge of 
eternity, the simplicity and majesty of his sentiments, the sepul- 
chral solemnity of a voice which seemed to issue from the shades, 
combined with the instrinsic dignity of the subject, perfectly 
quelled the audience with tenderness and terror, and produced 
such a scene of audible weeping as was perhaps never surpassed. 
All other emotions were absorbed in devotional feeling : it 
seemed to us as though we were permitted for a short space to 
look into eternity, and every sublunary object vanished before 
c the powers of the world to come.' Yet there was no considera- 
ble exertion, no vehemence, no splendid imagery, no magnificent 
description : it was the simple declaration of truth, of truth, in- 
deed, of infinite moment, borne in upon the heart by a mind in~ 
tensely alive to its reality and grandeur. Criticism was disarmed ; 
the hearer felt himself elevated to a region which it could not 
penetrate ; all was powerless submission to the master spirit of 
the scene. It will be always considered by those who witnessed 
it, as affording as high a specimen as can be easily conceived, of 
the power of a preacher over his audience, the habitual or even 
frequent recurrence of which would create an epoch in the re- 
ligious history of the world."* 

This description, even though some allowance should be 
made for the eloquence of friendship, which was poured 
forth by the pen of Mr. Toller's admiring friend, is re- 
plete with instruction to our rising ministry. They may 
learn the vast importance of the manner in which a sermon 
is delivered, as well as the matter of which it is c< imposed ; 



* Memoirs of Mr. Toller, by Mr. Hall, prefixed to a volume o 
Mr T^lier's sermons. 



IN DELIVERY. 137 

for, with all his vigorous and manly thought, Mr. Toller 
owed much as a preacher to his method of address. Nor 
is this the only lesson, nor perhaps the most important 
one, to be learnt from this short but precious piece of 
ministerial biography ; for we gather what it is that, with 
minds of the highest order, such as Mr. Hall's, constitutes 
the nearest approach to perfect pulpit eloquence, and to 
which even these commanding intellects yield themselves 
up with the most willing submission — not the artificial 
elaboration of men intent upon producing a great sermon ; 
not the magniloquent diction and splendid imagery, w r hich 
have been sought with ambitious eagerness by those who 
aim to shine ; nor the cold, abstract, philosophical reason- 
ing of a metaphysical dialectician ; but the simplicity and 
earnestness of a preacher who aims to instruct the judg- 
ment, awaken the conscience, and affect the heart. All 
great minds love simplicity, and detest affectation. This 
was especially the case with Mr. Hall. His censure of 
the opposite quality to unaffected earnestness, amounted 
sometimes to eloquent extravagance and burlesque, and his 
sarcasms not unfrequently were tinged with uncharitable 
bitterness ; while his admiration of simplicity was occa- 
sionally expressed in somewhat exaggerated panegyric. 
The ambition of a preacher whose aim is usefulness might 
well be gratified in a remark which he once made after 
hearing a sermon : " I should not wonder if a hundred 
souls were converted to-night !" 

These are only a few out of innumerable instances 
which could be adduced, to prove the vast importance 
which belongs to an effective enunciation. Far greater 
numbers of our preachers fail for want of this than from 
any other cause ; a fact so notorious as to need no proof 
beyond common observation, and so impressive as to de- 

12* 



138 EARNESTNESS 

mand the attention not only of the professors but the com- 
mittees of all our colleges. It is too generally the case 
that no sufficient culture is bestowed upon the speaking 
powers of our students, from the beginning to the end of 
their course of study. There is great assiduity manifested 
in giving them a fulness of matter, but far too little in pro- 
ducing an impressiveness of manner. Every assistance 
is granted to them to make them scholars, philosophers, 
and divines ; but as to good speaking, for the acquisition 
of this they are left pretty much to themselves. Nay, it 
is not even inculcated upon them with the emphasis it 
should be, to try to make good speakers of themselves. 
A complete system of ministerial education must of neces- 
sity include some attention to elocution, and which should 
commence as soon as a student enters college : so that by 
the time he is put upon the preaching list he may have 
some aptitude for the management of his voice, and not 
have Ins thoughts diverted then from his matter and his 
object to his manner. He should by that time have 
acquired a habit of good speaking, so as to be able to prac- 
tice it with facility, and without study. The great objec- 
tion to lectures on elocution is that they are apt to pro- 
duce a pompous, stiff, and affected manner ; but this is an 
abuse of the art, the object of which should be to cure the 
vices of a bad, and to supply the wants of a defective 
enunciation, and to form an easy, natural, and impressive 
delivery. 

I entirely concur, therefore, with Dr. Vaughan, in his 
important and impressive remark, "that let our students 
fail in the matter of a good elocution, and so far as regards 
their ministry among Protestant dissenters, it will matter 
little in what else they may succeed.'' This is sustained 
by a reference to tli.e great number we observe, who, 



IN DELIVERY. 139 

though soundly orthodox in sentiment, possessed of large 
acquirements in scholarship and philosophy, partakers of 
undoubted piety, and even desirous of doing good — yet 
make no way, can with difficulty procure a situation, and 
are filled, perhaps, with wonder, that men very much 
their inferiors in natural talent and literary acquirement, 
are everywhere followed, while they are everywhere neg- 
lected. The problem is easily solved, the mystery soon 
explained : these inferior men, by their earnest, animated 
manner, make their slenderer abilities tell more upon the 
popular mind, and heart, and conscience, than the dull 
scholars and cold philosophers do their accumulated but 
useless stores of knowledge. 

It should, however, be remarked, that there is nothing 
more likely to be mistaken than animation in the pulpit. 
There are some young ministers, who, aware of the im- 
portance of a graceful and effective elocution, take no small 
pains to acquire it, by studying and practicing the most 
approved rules of the art. It is not, however, this alone 
for which I contend : for as the lessons of the dancing- 
master form only a stiff and formal action, where there is 
no natural ease and elegance, so also the teacher of elocu- 
tion can do little to form an earnest and energetic speaker, 
where there is no living source of animation in the soul. 
It is not a pompous, swelling, ore rotundo style of speaking 
that constitutes the excellence of an orator ; not " the start 
and stare theatric ;" not modulations of the voice that 
sound as if the speaker were regulating tones and cadences 
by the fugle motions of a teacher standing before him : but 
the impassioned vivacity of one who feels intensely his 
subject, and who speaks under the influence of strong emo- 
tion. The secret of animation, the nature of earnestness, 
lie, as we have said, in an intense feeling of the subject af 



140 EARNESTNESS 

discourse ; in a mind deeply impressed, and a heart 
warmed, with tl.e theme discussed. All men are in ear- 
nest when they feel. Hence the anecdote of the pleader, 
who, on being applied to by a client to undertake her 
cause, upon perceiving the coldness of her manner in stat- 
ing her case, told the applicant he did not credit her story. 
Stung by this reflection upon her veracity, and this disbe- 
lief of her grievance, she rose into strong emotion, and 
affirmed, with expressive vehemence, the truth of the 
story. " Now, " said he, " I believe you." 

The hackneyed, but valuable rule of the ancient teacher 
of eloquence remains, and ever will remain, as true as when 
it was first uttered — "Weep yourself, if you expect me 
to weep. " Sympathy is the speaker's most powerful 
auxiliary : there is nothing so contagious as strong emo- 
tion. We have most of us, perhaps, seen a large portion 
of a congregation brought to tears by the pathetic and 
faltering tones, the tremulous lips and suffused eyes of the 
preacher. But then it must be on a subject which is 
worthy of it — must be sincere and not simulated emotion, 
and must come only when the people's minds are prepared 
to sympathize ; for as there is only a step between the 
sublime and the ridiculous, the same remark may be made 
concerning the pathetic. Genuine emotion is the charm 
of all speaking upon moral and religious subjects, in the 
absence of which the most measured and stately elocution, 
whatever pleasure it may impart to the ear, will have little 
power to affect the heart. We have sometimes listened to 
lofty and well composed music, to an overture for instance, 
which we could not but admire ; but it was still cold 
admiration, for the whole piece had not a note of passion 
from beginning to end : but some simple melody followed 
it, which, by the pathos of its notes, or the power of ita 



IN DELIVERY. 141 

associations, touched every chord in our hearts, and raised 
in us a tumult of emotion. Thus it is with different 
preachers : we listen to one, whose excellent composition, 
and sonorous, perhaps even musical voice, command our 
admiration ; but not a passion stirs, all within is cold, 
quiet, and without emotion; the speaking is good, but it 
does not move us : but there is another, with perhaps less 
talent, yea, less oratory, in one sense, but his tone his 
looks, his manner throughout, are full of earnest feeling ; it 
is a strain, every word of which comes from the heart, and 
every word of which awakens by sympathy a correspond- 
ent state of feeling in our hearts. 

Who is likely to be moved by hearing a man discuss the 
most awful realities of eternal truth, such as the danger 
and the doom of immortal souls, the glories of heaven, 
and the torments of hell, with as much coolness, and with 
as little emotion as a lecturer on science would exhibit 
when dwelling on the facts of natural history ? Is it prob- 
able there can be any earnestness in the hearer, when 
there is none in the preacher ? " How is it," said a minis- 
ter to an actor, " that your performances, which are but 
pictures of the imagination, produce so much more effect 
than our sermons, which are all realities?" "Because," 
said the actor, " we represent our fictions as though they 
were realities, and you preach your realities as though 
they were fictions." It is difficult to believe that a dull, 
cold, statue-like preacher, whose passionless monotony is 
a mental opiate for his hearers, can himself credit the mes- 
sage he is delivering. What, that man who never elevates 
or depresses his voice from one given pitch of soporific 
dullness ; whose tone never falters, whose eye never glis- 
tens, whose hand never moves, who speaks as if he were 
afraid of awakening the slumberers, whom his "drowsy 



142 EARNESTNESS 

tinklings" had lulled to sleep, — he feel the weight of souls \ 
he in earnest for their salvation ; he endeavoring to pluck 
them as brands from the burning? Who will credit it? 
It is true he may have no great power of voice, and a 
naturally phlegmatic mind, with a great deficiency in the 
natural powers of oratory ; but place him by the side of 
a river where he has seen a fellow- creature fall into the 
water, and has thrown a plank or a rope to aid the drown- 
ing man to escape, will he not have power of voice, and of 
animated tones, and of persuasive earnestness there, as he 
directs the object of his solicitude to the means of deliver- 
ance ? Will he not rise out of his monotone there ? Will 
he not make himself heard and felt there ? 

By an earnest manner, then, is meant, the enunciation 
that is dictated by a deep and feeling sense of the im- 
portance of our message. We are to persuade, to entreat, 
to beseech, and these modes of speech have an utterance 
of their own. What Paul's manner must have been, how 
impassioned and impressive, when he made Felix tremble 
and Festus exclaim, " Thou art beside thyself ; much learn- 
ing hath made thee mad." But even the sublime and 
awful truths of revelation, if they do not press upon the 
heart, and lay hold of, and possess it, will be but coldly 
handled and feebly discussed. It is only when the love of 
Christ constraineth us, and beareth us away as with the 
force of a torrent, that we shall speak with a manner be- 
fitting our great theme. If we are not intensely real, we 
shall be but indifferent preachers. 

This shows us the vast moment of our living: under the 
powerful impression of the truths we preach. We can- 
not, like the actor, have a stage dress and character to puc 
on for the occasion, and put off when the curtain drops. 
There may indeed be a factitious earnestness excited by 



IN DELIVERY. 143 

the sounds of our own voice, and by the solemnities of 
public worship ; but this will usually be fitful, feeble, ora- 
torical, and very different from that burning ardor which 
is the result of eminent piety, and which imparts its own 
intensity of emotion to the words and tones of the speaker. 
It was the patriotism of Demosthenes that constituted the 
fire of his eloquence : he loved his country, and, trembling 
for the ruin that Philip was bringing upon the liberties of 
Greece, he poured forth his lightning words, in tones of 
thunder. His philippics were a torrent of the strongest 
emotion, bursting from his heart, though guided in its 
course by the established rules of eloquence. He could 
never have spoken as he did, had not the wrongs of Philip, 
and the dangers of Greece, entered into his soul. So 
must it be with us : our animation must be the earnestness, 
not of rhetoric, but of religion ; not of art, but of renewed 
nature ; and not designed to astound, but to move ; not 
the manner studied and intended merely to attract a crowd, 
and to excite applause, but to save the souls of men from 
death. For this purpose, whatever means we employ, 
and whatever rules we lay down, to cure the vices of a 
bad elocution, and to acquire the advantages of a grace- 
ful one — and such an aim is quite lawful — we must ever 
remember that the basis of a powerful and effective pulpit 
oratory, will consist of a deep and fervent piety ; in the 
^absence of which the most commanding gift of public 
speaking w.ll be but as sounding brass or a tinkling 
cymbal. 

Dr. CoTToy Mather, in his beautiful and invaluable 
work, now nearly forgotten, entitled " The Student and 
Preacher," in speaking on this subject, remarks : — 

" It is a pity but a well prepared sermon should be a well pro 



144 EARNESTNESS 

nounced one. Wherefore avoid forever all inanes sine mente 
a* 
sunos, and all indecencies ; everything that is ridiculous. Be 

sure to speak deliberately. Strike the accent always upon the 
word in the sentence it properly belongs unto. A tone that shall 
have no regard to this is very injudicious, and will make you 
talk too much in the clouds. Do not begin too high. Ever con- 
clude with vigor. If you must have your notes before you in 
your preaching, and it be needful for you de scripio dicere, 
which even some of the most famous orators, both among the 
Grecians and the Romans, did, yet let there be with you a dis- 
tinction between the neat using of notes, and the dull reading of 
them. Keep up the air and life of speaking, and put not off 
your hearers with a heavy reading to them. How can you de- 
mand of them to remember much of what you bring to them, 
when you remember nothing of it yourself ? Besides, by read- 
ing all you say, you will so cramp and stunt all ability for 
speaking, that you will be unable to make a handsome speech 
on any occasion. What I therefore advise you to is, let your 
notes be little more than a guide, on which you may cast your 
eye now and then, to see what arrow is to be next fetched from 
thence; and then with your eye as much as may be on them 
whom you speak to, let it be shot away with a vivacity becom- 
ing one in earnest for to have the truths well entertained by the 
auditory. Finally let your perorations be lively expostulations 
with the conscience of the hearer ; appeals made and questions 
put unto the conscience, and consignments of the work over 
into the hands of that flaming preacher in the bosom of the 
hearer. In such flames you may do wondrously." 

Pity that Dr. Mather had not gone a little farther than 
this, and affectionately advised his younger brethren in the 
ministry to begin their career without any notes at all in 
the pulpit ; advice still more necessary in this day, as there 
seems a rising inclination to adopt the practice. Nothing 
can be conceived of more likely to repress earnestness, 
and to hinder our usefulness, than this method becoming 



IN DELIVERY. 145 

general. True it is that some preachers may rise up, who, 
like a few living examples, may in despite of this practice 
attain to eminence, to honor, and usefulness, such as rarely 
fall to the lot of ministers in any denomination ; but this 
will not be the case with the greater number, who, having 
no commanding intellect to lift them above the disadvan- 
tage of this habit, will find few churches willing to accept 
their dullness, for the sake of the accuracy with which it is 
expressed. And who can tell how much greater our 
greatest men would be, if they delivered their sermons 
without their notes? Think of Whitfield, Hall, Par- 
sons, reading their sermons ! What a restraint upon their 
noble intellects, and their gushing hearts ! Where is read- 
ing tolerated but in the pulpit ? Not on the stage, nor at 
the bar, nor in the senate. It is conceded that we lose 
something of precision and accuracy by spoken discourses, 
as compared with those that are read, but is not this more 
than made up by what we gain in impression ? By him 
who slavishly reads, the aid borrowed by the preacher from 
the eye and graceful action is lost ; the link of sympathy 
between his soul and that of the audience is weakened ; 
the lightnings of his eloquence flash less vividly, and its 
thunders roll less grandly, for this obstruction to their ef- 
forts. Perhaps even those who do read are aware of the 
disadvantages of the habit, and would say to their younger 
brethren, whose habits are not yet formed, avoid, if you 
can, the practice of reading your discourses. There are, 
however, occasions, when from the nature and extent of the 
subject, this practice is not only allowable, but necessary. 

Before we pass from the subject of preaching, we may 
consider with propriety the matter and manner of prayer. 
Between these two there is a close and obvious connection, 
for earnest sermons should be ever associated with earnest 

13 



146 EARNESTNESS 

prayers ; and it cannot be doubted that a pious, faithful, 
and devoted minister, is scarcely less useful, at least in the 
way of keeping up the spirit of devotion in his congrega- 
tion, by the latter, than he is by the former. His chastened 
fervor, like a breeze from heaven, comes over the languid 
souls of his hearers, and fans the spark of piety in their 
hearts to a flame : while on the contrary, the dullness and 
coldness of some public prayers are enough to freeze what 
little devotion there may be in the assembled people. We 
have thought too little of this, and have too much neglect- 
ed to cultivate the gift, and seek the grace of supplica- 
tion. If entreating and beseeching importunity be proper 
in dealing with sinners for God, can it be less so in dealing 
with God for sinners ? Our flocks should be the witnesses 
of both these, and hear not only how we speak to them, 
but how we plead with God for them ; should be the 
auditors of our agonizing intercession on their behalf; and 
be convinced how true is our declaration that we have 
them in our hearts. How such petitions, so full of intense 
affection and deep solicitude, would tend to soften their 
minds, and to prepare them for the sermon which was to 
follow. Who has not beheld the solemnizing and subdu- 
ing effect of such holy wrestling with God, upon the con- 
gregation ? they seemed to feel as if God had indeed come 
down among them in power and glory during the prayer, 
and was preparing to do some work of grace in their midst. 
The rudest and most turbulent spirits have sometimes been 
awed, and the most trifling and frivolous minds made seri- 
ous, by this holy exercise. We who practice extempore 
prayer have advantages for this, of which we should not 
be slow to avail ourselves. Not being confined by the 
forms of a liturgy, but left to our own choice, we can give 
a harmony to all the various parts of the sendee, and 



IN DELIVERY. 147 

make the scripture we read, and the hymns we sing, as 
well as the prayers we present, all bear upon the subject 
of the sermon, and thus give a unity of design, and a con- 
centration of effect to the solemn engagements of the sanc- 
tuary. This should be an object with every minister, in 
order that the thoughts of the people may, without being 
divided or diverted, flow pretty much in one channel, and 
towards one point. Moral, as well as mechanical effect, 
depends upon the combination of many seemingly small 
causes. But more especially should the prayers be in har- 
mony with the sermon, and every preacher knows what 
the sermon is to be. If he is about to address himself in 
a strain of beseeching importunity to the impenitent and 
unbelieving, how much would it tend to prepare them for 
his appeal if his heart were previously, and in their hear- 
ing, to pour forth a strain of fervent pleading with God on 
their behalf. They would thus be awed and subdued into 
a state of mind likely to render the forthcoming sermon 
effectual, by the blessing of God, for their conversion. 
Such a prayer would be the most appropriate introduction 
he could give to his discourse. But then especial care 
should be taken that the hymn, and even the tune, which 
interposes between the prayer and the sermon, should not 
be of a kind which would divert the current of thought, much 
less efface the solemn impressions already produced, and 
hinder the effect of the discourse about to be delivered. I 
remember to have heard a preacher, who was going to 
preach a very solemn sermon, breathe out one of the most 
impressive strains of intercession for the impenitent I ever 
listened to, as if even anxious to begin the work of conver- 
sion by his prayer, which he hoped to finish by his sermon. 
The people sat down in solemn awe, when, as if by a 
prompting of the wicked one, who catches away the seed 



]48 EARNESTNESS 

out of the heart, the clerk gave out a most inappropriate 
hymn, and the choir, wilh a band of musical instruments, 
sung a tune more inappropriate still : as may be easily 
imagined, the seriousness produced by the prayer was in- 
stantly lost, and the preparation for the sermon entirely 
destroyed. How true is it that the singing seat is often 
hostile to the usefulness of the pulpit, and the choir in op- 
position to the effect of the preacher. Finney, in his book 
on Revivals, descends to so minute a specification of the 
circumstances to be attended to in prejxiring for the revival, 
as to expose him to the ridicule of many of his readers ; 
and no attempt is here made to defend him, or to recom- 
mend his volume ; but still there is true philosophy in the 
spirit of his directions, which amounts to this, that the 
effect of sermons, and indeed of all public speaking, de- 
pends often upon very little things. Trifles have great 
power to divert the current of thought, to break the chain 
of reflection, and to disturb the process of emotion. Every- 
thing connected with public worship should be still, orderly, 
solemn; as befits a service conducted in the presence of 
God, and with reference to him. 

Returning to the subject of prayer, it becomes every 
minister to take especial care that this should be conducted 
with propriety, not only on account of its nature and de- 
sign, as addressed to God, and as the medium of obtaining 
blessings at his hand, but because of its moral effect upon 
the people. We object to pre-composed forms, and we 
think on sufficient grounds, as wanting in adaptation to the 
ever-changing circumstances of the congregation, to the 
events of the times, and to the services of the minister, 
and as at the same time tending to produce formalism — 
but then we are bound to take care that our free prayers 
are such as are eminently adapted to edification. And is 



IN DELIVERY. 149 

there not room f jr much improvement in our public devo- 
tional exercises ? In some cases there is too much elabo- 
ration and appearance of study ; though in far more, a 
want of richness and fulness of unction and importunity. 
The prayers are often too excursive and vague, a mere 
string of petitions, which have no connection with each 
other, and which leave the whole without unity of design, 
or definiteness of object. There are some admirable re- 
marks on the subject of public extempore prayer, in Fos- 
ter's sketch of Mr. Hall's character as a preacher, which 
go to prove that more concentration of thought on par- 
ticular topics, would produce a greater effect, than that 
unrestrained discursiveness which characterizes most of 
our devotional exercises. We pass too rapidly from one 
subject to another, and thus as it were surprise our hearers, 
by their being brought to a new topic before they were 
aware they had left the preceding one ; and it may be safe- 
ly affirmed that prayers which do not detain the thoughts 
on any certain things for a few moments, take slight hold 
on the auditors. " Things noted so transiently, do not ad- 
mit of deliberate attention, and seem as if they did not 
claim it." With the liberty of unrestricted variety which 
we possess, why should it be thought necessary to go al- 
ways over the same ground, and bring in the same topics, 
in the same exact order, at much the same length, and in 
almost the same words ? Why may we not sometimes 
drop everything else, and break out into a continued strain 
in reference to one selected object? How deep would be 
the conviction of the audience of the importance which 
we, at any rate, felt to belong to it, and how likely would 
be such a method to engage them in sympathy with us, in 
reference to it. We should also be careful Co avoid all 
personalities which would excite curiosity or disturb devo- 



150 EARNESTNESS 

tion, and especially all laudatory epithets on the one hand, 
and criminatory ones on the other. In using our freedom 
let us take care not to abuse it, and endeavor that the end 
and object of our preaching shall be helped, and not hin- 
dered, by the method of our praying. If pre-composed 
forms of prayer have their disadvantages, so also has free 
prayer ; and while we consider the balance of advantage 
vastly in favor of the latter, let us recollect that our breth- 
ren of the Establishment are of the same opinion respect- 
ing their liturgy. Let us therefore charitably bear with, and 
not reciprocally reproach, each other. 

The manner of prayer, as well as its matter, demands 
also our serious attention. While the very nature of the 
exercise forbids everything showy or elaborately ingeni- 
ous, everything quaint, familiar, and irreverent, and en- 
joins the utmost simplicity and spirituality, it no less pro- 
hibits all flippancy, carelessness and pompous oratory. 
The most serious, reverent, and devotional manner is re- 
quired, not only on our own account, but on account of the 
audience. There are some men whose very tones are enough 
to extinguish all devotional feeling at once. It is almost 
impossible to conceive that it is a sinful mortal we hear 
addressing himself to the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God, be- 
fore whom the seraphim veil their faces : while on the con- 
trary there are others whose deep, devotional tones, whose 
subdued manner, whose awe-stricken entire demeanor, 
seem to remind us that they are indeed speaking to the Al- 
mighty. It is not necessary to suppose that earnestness 
requires hoisterousness ; a mistake too commonly made by 
many who work themselves up into vociferation and actual - 
contortion. Such vehemence, like a violent blast of wind, 
puts out the languid flame of devotion, when a gentler 
breeze would fan it to greatei intensity. It were well also 



IN DELIVERY. 151 

to avoid that sing-song tone which we too often hear in 
those who lead the public devotions. Still there must be 
earnestness — the earnestness of deep feeling, of lively de- 
votion, of a heart intent upon its own salvation, and the 
salvation of those who are then and there waiting to hear 
the word of life. 



CHAPTER VII. 

EARNESTNESS MANIFESTED IN THE PASTORATE. 

This must by no means be omitted. The pulpit is the 
emef, but not the only sphere of ministerial solicitude and 
action : just as preaching is God's first, but not his exclu- 
sive means of saving souls. Different ministers have fal- 
len into two opposite mistakes ; one class have thought to 
do everything in the pulpit as preachers, but they have 
neglected the duties of the pastor ; while the others have 
purposed to do everything as pastors, and have neglected 
the diligent preparation of their sermons. Of the two er- 
rors the latter is the more mischievous, inasmuch as no 
pastoral devotedness, however intense, will long keep to- 
gether a congregation among Protestant Dissenters, much 
less collect one, when the preaching is indifferent and un- 
attractive ; while, on the other hand, good preaching will 
of itself do much in the absence of pastoral attentions to 
keep the flock from being scattered. But why should not 
both extremes be avoided ? Good preaching and good 
shepherding are quite compatible with each other, and he 
who is in earnest will combine both. He will be a watch- 
man for souls everywhere, and seek if by any and by all 
means he can save some. He can never entirely lay aside 
his anxiety for the objects of his regard, and is ever ready 



EARNESTNESS IN THE PASTORATE. 153 

to manifest it on all suitable occasions. His sermons are 
composed and delivered for this object, and he is after- 
wards inquisitive for the effect they have produced, and 
watches and prays for the result. His anxious eye is 
searching the congregation, even while preaching, to see, 
not so much who is delighted, but who is seriously im- 
pressed. He will not, cannot be content to go on, without 
ascertaining whether or not his sermons are successful. Like 
a good physician, who is minutely watchful for the effect 
of his medicines upon his patients individually, according 
to their specific varieties of disease, he will endeavor to 
ascertain the impression which his sermons have produced, 
and on particular persons. He will aim to attract to him 
the anxious inquirers after salvation : and for this purpose 
he will have special meetings for such persons ; will invite 
and encourage their attendance ; will cause them to feel 
that they are most welcome, and by his tender, faithful, 
and appropriate treatment of their case, will make them 
sensible that to him they are as truly the objects of deep 
interest, as the lambs are to the good shepherd. And 
though he will very naturally wish not to be too frequent- 
ly broken in upon, in his private studies, by those to whom 
\e has given set times for meeting with him — yet a poor, 
ourdened, trembling penitent will never find him engaged 
too deeply or delightfully in study, to heal the broken in 
heart, and to bind up their wounds. It is really distress- 
ing to know how little time some ministers are willing to 
give up from their favorite pursuits, even for relieving the 
solicitudes of an anxious mind. They read much, and 
perhaps, as the result, preach well-composed, though pos- 
sibly not very awakening sermons ; but as for any skill, or 
even taste, for dealing with convinced sinners, wounded 
consciences, and perplexed minds, they are as destitute of 



154 EARNESTNESS IN 

this, as if it were no part of their duty. The} 7 resemble 
lecturers on medicine, rather than practitioners ; or are 
like a physician who would assemble all his patients who 
were able to attend, in the same room, and then give gene- 
ral directions about health and sickness to all alike, but 
who does not inquire into their several ailments, nor visit 
them at their own abodes, nor adapt his treatment to their 
individual and specific diseases. It is admitted that some 
men have less tact, and a still greater destitution of taste, 
than others, for this department of pastoral action; but 
some skill in it, and some attention to it, are the duty of 
every minister, and may be acquired : and no man can be 
in earnest without it. He who can only generalize in the 
pulpit, but has no ability to individualize out of it ; who 
cannot in some measure meet the varieties of religious per- 
plexity, and deal with the various modifications of awa- 
kened solicitude ; who finds himself disinclined or disabled to 
guide the troubled conscience through the labyrinths which 
sometimes meet the sinner in the first stage of his pilgrim- 
age to the skies, may be a popular preacher, but he is lit- 
tle fitted to be the pastor of a Christian church. One half 
"hour's individual conversation with a convinced, but per- 
plexed mind, may do more to correct mistakes, to convey 
instruction, to relieve solicitude, and to settle the wavering 
in faith and peace, than ten sermons. True, it requires 
much love for souls, much devotedness to their salvation, 
and much anxiety for the success of our ministry, to devote 
that half-hour to one solitary inquirer after life eternal ; 
but surely no really earnest minister will think his time 
ill bestowed in guiding that single inquirer into the way of 
peace. 

This individualizing labor is more easily carried on in 
some situations than in others, and is indeed more important, 



THE PASTORATE. 155 

in some situations, to ministerial success. In small congre- 
gations, for instance, especially when they are found in 
small towns or villages, the objects of such special atten- 
tion come more under the notice of a pastor, are more 
accessible, and can have more time given to them, than in 
large congregations in large towns. To these smaller 
churches, individuals, though not of more importance or 
value in themselves, since the soul and its salvation are of 
equal worth everywhere, are of more consequence to the 
comfort of the minister, and the prosperity of the cause, 
than they are where a crowd is gathered. Pastors of 
large churches are much more occupied, both with the 
concerns of their own flock, and with public business, than 
their brethren in more retired situations, and are often so 
Dccupied and hurried, as to have too little leisure for the 
individual attentions now recommended ; and are perhaps 
apt, amidst the aggregate of numbers, to think too little of 
the units. Still some excuse may be made for them, of 
which the others cannot avail themselves. The accession 
of a single member to our smaller churches is felt to be of 
more importance, and produces a more reviving and cheer- 
ing effect, than the addition of several to the larger ones. 
We have all something to learn even from the Scribes and 
Pharisees of ancient times, who compassed sea and land 
to make one proselyte ; and also from the Papists of mod- 
ern times, who pursue a like course : or, to change the ex- 
amples, we want more of the benevolent disposition of an- 
gels, who rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. No efforts 
would be more likely tc be successful, none would more 
amply reward those who make them, than the selection of 
the most hopeful individuals in the congregation, and fol- 
lowing them up with all the assiduities of a special, affec- 
tionate and judicioui attention. Such a course of pastoral 



156 EARNESTNESS IN 

labor, though it would not altogether be a substitute for 
pulpit attractiveness, and should never be allowed to super- 
sede the most diligent pulpit preparation, would enable 
many a minister, who may not be gifted with large abili- 
ties, to retain a strong hold upon his flock. This is a line 
along which almost any one may carry on a career of ear- 
nestness. 

As another object of pastoral attention, may be mentioned 
attention to the young : and these may be divided into two 
classes — the young persons who belong to the congregation, 
and those who belong to the Sunday schools. With re- 
gard to the former, it is a matter of congratulation that, the 
modern plan of Bible classes is not unfrequent nor unsuc- 
cessful : but even at this time, they are rather the excep- 
tion than the rule. It may be feared that there are some, 
who, from the beginning to the end of the year, aye, and of 
their ministry also, take no interest in the youth of their 
congregations ; they have no catechetical classes, no Bible 
classes, and even rarely preach to the young. Who can 
wonder that such men have to complain that their young 
people go off to the Church of England, or, what is far 
worse, to the world ? What have they ever done to at- 
tach them to themselves, or to their place of worship ? 
Let no man be surprised that his congregation, diminished 
by death and removals, continually declines, if he neglects 
to lay hold of the youth of his flock. Whence does the 
shepherd look for his future flock, but from the lambs? 
And who are to constitute our future congregations and 
churches, but our young people ? 

I am an advocate also for the catechetical instruction of 
the younger children, and am sorry that this admirable 
method of imparting religious truth has fallen into such 
general desuet ide. Even the Bible class, however accom- 



THE PASTORATE. 157 

modaied to the capacity of these junior members of our 
congregation, is not altogether a substitute for, but should 
be regarded only as an addition to, the practice of catechis- 
ing. There is still a great desideratum to be supplied to 
our denomination, whose thanks would be pre-eminently 
due to the man who should supply it, — I mean a set of 
well composed catechisms, which might be introduced to 
all our families, and thus set up a uniform system of reli- 
gious instructiou for the body. I say, which might be in- 
troduced to all our families ; for it is by no means my wish 
or my intention to obtrude the pastor between the parent 
and child, and take the religious instruction of the latter 
from his natural guardian and teacher, to devolve it upon 
the pastor. It is to parents that the injunction is delivered, 
" Thou shall teach these words to thy children diligently, 
and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and 
bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." 
"No pastoral attention should be intended, or can be adapt- 
ed, to supercede or lighten this solemn parental obligation. 
But then the pastor should labor to the uttermost to keep 
up the parents who are of his flock, to the right dis- 
charge of their duty. There are few of us who are not 
sorrowfully convinced that little is to be expected from our 
sermons in the pulpit, or our instructions in the class room, 
while all our endeavors are so miserably counteracted by 
the neglect of domestic instruction, and the want of paren- 
tal solicitude. I do not mean to justify pastoral neglect by 
advancing the obligations of parental duty, for I believe we 
have been, and are, all verily guilty of a criminal defect of 
duty in not giving more of our time and attention to the 
children of our congregations ; — but still even the time and 
attention we do give is all likely to be lost, by the low 
state of religion in the homes of some of our people. 

14 



158 EARNESTNESS IN 

We might very naturally expect that our churches wou'd 
be chiefly built up from the families of our members ; 
whereas, the greater number of accessions are from those 
who were once the people of the world. There is a great 
mistake on this subject, into which both parents and minis- 
ters have fallen ; and that is, that the conversion of the 
children of the professor is to be looked for more from the 
sermons of the latter than from the instructions of the 
former ; whereas the contrary is the true order of things ; 
and were domestic piety and teaching what they ought to 
be, this is the order which would be found to exist. There 
is unquestionable truth in the proverb, " Train up a child 
in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not 
depart from it." I believe that were the nature and design 
of the domestic constitution thoroughly understood, and its 
religious duties early, judiciously, affectionately, and perse- 
veringly discharged, the greater number of our young peo 
pie would be converted to God at home.* Were all reli 
gious professors, who are parents, real and eminent Chris 
tians ; were they from the time they became parents to se . 
their hearts upon being the instruments of their children's 
conversion ; were they to do all that prayer, instruction, 
discipline, and example could do for the formation of the 
religious character of their offspring ; and were they care- 
fully to abstain from everything which would obstruct 
these ends, I feel confident that it would be within the hal- 
lowed precincts of such homes, and not in the sanctuary, 
that the children of the godly would usually become godly 

* I take this opportunity to recommend a most valuable volume, en- 
titled * c The Domestic Constitution," by the Rev. Christopher Ander- 
son ; a new and cheaper edition of which is lately published. Every 
minister should know, by reading it, the worth of this inestimable 
book, and recommend it to his flock. 



THE PASTORATE. 159 

themselves. Here, then, should and will be an object with 
every truly earnest pastor, to bring up the parents in his 
church to a right sense and discharge of their functions. 
He will labor to impress upon them the solemn obligations 
under which they live, to train up their children for God. 
It will be a matter of prayer and solicitude with him to 
excite them to their duty and keep them in it ; for this 
purpose, he will not only make his pulpit ministrations 
bear much upon parental obligation, but he will make it a 
point of visiting the families which are in his church, to 
pray with them, and to hold up the hands of the parents in 
this godly duty. Deeply is it to be regretted that this 
pail of pastoral occupation, as well as catechising, has gone 
out amidst the bustle and engrossing power of trade, and 
the public business of modern religious institutions. How 
little do the families of our people know of us in the charac- 
ter and hallowed familiarity of the pastor ? When are ive 
seen amidst the domestic circle as the respected and be- 
loved minister of that lovely and interesting group, labor- 
ing by our affectionate, serious, and solemn discourse, and 
by prayer as serious, solemn, and affectionate, to entwine 
ourselves round the young hearts which there look up to 
us with reverent regard ? Why, why do we neglect such 
important scenes of labor, and hopeful efforts for useful- 
ness ? What power would this give to our sermons, and 
what efficacy to our ministrations ! These young ones 
would grow up to love us, and it would not be a light or 
little thing which would break them off from our ministry 
when we had produced in them such a personal attach- 
ment to ourselves. But then we must take especial care 
that our conduct in the houses of our people should be such 
as to give weight and influence to their religious instruction 
of the family, and to ours in the sanctuary, We must be 



160 EARNESTNESS IN 

known there as the servants of God, the ministers of 
Christ, the watchmen for souls ; and not merely as the table 
guest, the parlor jester, the gossiping story-teller, the de- 
bating politician, the stormy polemic, the bitter sectarian ; 
much less as the lover of wine. "Would God that those of 
my brethren who have acquired the habit of smoking, if 
they cannot leave it off, would abstain from this practice 
in the houses of their friends, and confine it to their own : 
would that they did not permit the young inquisitive eyes 
of the junior members of the families which they visit, to 
see the pipe brought out as their necessary adjunct. Did 
they know the regrets of their best friends, and consider 
the power of their example, they would, at any rate, so far 
abstain as to wait till they had reached their own habita- 
tion, before they indulged themselves with their accus- 
tomed gratification. Still, it is freely conceded, without 
justifying the habit, there are some who are addicted to it, 
so grave, and serious, and dignified in other respects, as to 
furnish by their general demeanor an antidote against their 
example in this one particular : but what antidote can be 
found to neutralize the mischief inflicted by the levity and 
frivolity of the parlor buffoon, whose highest object in go- 
ing to the houses of his friends seems to be to tell a merry 
story and to excite a hearty laugh. In his hands and lips 
the pages of " Punch " are far more becoming, as they are, 
perhaps, far more frequent, than those of David, Isaiah, or 
Paul. Happily we have very few that go to this extreme 
of lightness and frivolity, but far too many, as is the case 
with all denominations, and with ours not more than others, 
of those whose hilarity is destructive at once of their dig- 
nity, their seriousness, and their usefulness as ministers of 
Christ. Not that I contend for sanctified demureness, and 
solemn grimace, or even a perpetual sermonizing converse- 



THE TASTORATE. 1G1 

tion ; as if a pastor could not talk, without violating official 
decorum, upon any topic but religion, and were letting 
down his dignity, or desecrating his sanctity, if he joined in 
ordinary conversation, and partook of, or even helped the 
cheerfulness of the circle. By no means : he is not to ap- 
pear like a spectre that has escaped from the cloister, to 
haunt the parlor, striking every face with paleness, and 
every tongue with silence. He is a man, a citizen, and a 
friend, as well as a minister ; and has a stake and an inter- 
est in the great questions which occupy human minds, 
and engage their conversation ; and provided he do not 
forget what is due to the latter, he need not throw off what 
belongs to the former. Nay, his very cheerfulness may he 
made a part of his earnestness, by being taken up and em- 
ployed as a means to conciliate the affections of all around 
him. The man who is seriously cheerful, who engages in 
general conversation, and accommodates himself to the in- 
nocent habits of those with whom he associates, and does 
this in order really to do them spiritual good, and aid him 
in the great work of saving their souls, will find in the sub- 
limity and sanctity of his end, a sufficient protection against 
the abuse of the means. This is widely different from the 
unchecked levity, and unrestrained frivolity in which some 
indulge, and which make it difficult to imagine how they 
can feel the value of souls, or the obligation of attempting 
their salvation. Howard at a masquerade, or Clarkson" 
at a fancy ball, would not have been more c it of place, nor 
a physician more out of character who haa ^ust come from 
the ravages of the plague, and was immediately going back 
to them again, who was seen wasting his time, and amus- 
ing himself with the tricks of a merry-andrew, than is a 
messenger of God's mercy, and a preacher ;f Christ's gos- 

14* 



102 EARNESTNESS IN 

pel, in the circles of folly and vanity, and lie himself the 
Momus of the party. 

But we now advert for a few moments to the scope for 
earnestness which is presented to the pastor, by the chil- 
dren of the Sunday school. By a most fatal error, too 
many of our ministers deem these institutions as either 
beyond their circle, or below their notice. They are neither. 
A pastor is, or ought to be, the head and chief in the 
' department of all the religious instruction which goes on 
in connection w^ith the congregation under his care. He 
is the teacher, the superintendent, and the responsible 
organ of religious knowledge for all the flock, and the 
Sunday school is a part of it. It is a wrong state of things 
that has grown up among some of us Dissenters, in which 
two, three, or four hundred rational minds and immortal 
souls are brought every Sabbath-day to our Sunday 
schools, and to our places of worship, for the very purpose 
of receiving religious instruction, and yet all this is to be 
carried on without its being once thought of by the pastor, 
that he has something to do in this business ; or by the 
congregation or the teachers, that he has by virtue of his 
office a right and a reason to interfere. In most cases, the 
pastor has given the matter out of his hand, and has thus 
raised up, or has been accessory to there being raised up, a 
body of young instructors of divine truth, who are acting 
independently of him, and who, in some few instances, 
have confederated against him. This is not as it should 
be. The teachers are, or ought to be, a pastor's special 
care ; to qualify them for their office, and to assist them 
in its duties, should be thought by him no inconsiderable 
part of his functions. Nor should even the children them- 
selves be viewed as persons with whom he has nothing to 



THE PASTORATE. 1G3 

do. There are always, among these, some whose minds 
have been brought to serious reflection, who are inquiring 
with solicitude after salvation, and whom he should take 
under his own teaching and special care, and guide into 
the way of faith, peace, and holiness : and he should not 
neglect to give frequent, affectionate, and solemn addresses 
to the rest. In a Sunday school of two or three hundred 
children, there are of course two or three hundred immortal 
souls, exposed by their very situation in life to peculiar 
dangers, yet all capable of eternal blessedness, and all 
brought weekly under the eye of the pastor : and yet by 
how many of our pastors is this hopeful object of religious 
zeal and benevolence thrown off from ministerial solicitude, 
and handed over to the Sunday school teachers, as if there 
were no hope of their saving the soul of a poor boy, nor 
any reward for saving a poor girl This obligation of at- 
tending to the souls of the Sunday scholars, while incum- 
bent upon all ministers, is especially so upon those who are 
laboring amidst much discouragement, in small congrega- 
tions. Many of these men are continually uttering their com- 
plaints over the smallness of their congregations, and the in- 
efficiency of their labors ; and yet, perhaps, have never 
thought of turning their attention to the two or three hun- 
dred youthful minds which are every Sabbath day before 
their eyes, and under the sound of their voice. No minister 
who ever threw his mind and heart into his Sunday schools 
had to complain that he labored in vain, and spent his 
strength for nought. No part of ministerial labor yields a 
quicker or a larger reward. By some it is made the main 
pivot on which their whole system of religious instruction 
turns, and flourishing congregations have risen up under its 
potency. I have myself been the astonished and delighted 
witness of this, especially in one well-known instance, and 



164 EARNESTNESS IN 

am so deeply impressed with its importance, that I conjure 
my brethren not to neglect this means of usefulness, nor 
throw away the golden opportunity which the present cir- 
cumstances of our country still hold out. 

Nor is it Sunday school instruction alone which claims 
our attention, but daily education. In this we must be in 
earnest also. It is one of the great subjects of the day, 
and belongs to us as much as to any one. We must not 
allow the public mind to be wholly taken from us, but 
must exert ourselves according to our ability and opportu- 
nity to train it up for society and God. Others know and 
feel the importance of this, if we do not. The Roman 
Catholic priests are aware of it, so are the clergy of the 
Established Church, and so are the Methodist ministers ; 
and shall Dissenting ministers be behind the most zealous 
and devoted friends of education ? I trust not. 

But there are other departments of the pastorate, in 
which earnestness will manifest itself; such as visiting the 
sick, especially where the disease is chronic, and leaves 
the mind at liberty for conversation ; and then also there 
is the difficult, but incumbent duty of rebuke, warning, and 
ecclesiastical discipline. No devoted servant of Christ can 
neglect the state of the church, but will be solicitous to 
maintain such order there, as shall be pleasing to Him to 
whom the church belongs. Like a good shepherd he will 
look after his flock, and will endeavor to avoid the denun- 
ciations of God delivered by the prophet Ezekiel : " Woe 
be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves ! 
Should not the shepherds feed the flocks ? The diseased 
have ye not strengthened ; neither have ye healed that 
which was sick ; neither have ye bound up that which was 
broken ; neither have ye brought again that which was 
driven away ; neither have ye sought that which was lost." 



THE FASTORATE. 1G5 

Impressive description of our duty ! May we be found so 
discharging it as to avoid this fearful woe ! 

How appropriately may I here introduce the words of 
the Bishop of Calcutta, in his admirable and heart-search- 
ing introduction to the edition of " Baxter's Reformed 
Pastor," published by Collins, in his series of "Select 
Authors:" 

'• What have we been doing as ministers ? Lamentably as we 
have failed in a general estimate of the vast importance of our 
office, we have failed as lamentably in all those parts of it which 
relate to personal inspection and vigilance over our flocks. We 
have confined ourselves to preaching, to ecclesiastical duties, 
to occasional visits to the sick, to the administration of the 
sacraments, to the external and secular relation in which we 
stand to our parishes ; but what have we done in personal care 
and direction, in affectionate catechetical conferences, in going 
from house to house, in visiting every family and individual in 
our districts, in becoming acquainted with the characters, the 
wants, the state of heart, the habits, the attendance upon public 
worship, the observance of the Sabbath, the instruction of chil- 
dren and servants, the family devotions, of each house ? Have 
we looked after each individual sheep with an eager solicitude ? 
Have we denied ourselves our own ease, and pleasure, and indul- 
gence, in order to ' go after Christ's sheep, scattered in this 
naughty, wicked world, that they may be saved forever ?' What 
do the streets and lanes of our cities testify concerning us ? 
What do the highways and hedges of our country parishes say 
as to our fidelity and love to souls ? What do the houses and 
cottages and sick chambers of our congregations and neighbor- 
hoods speak ? Where have we been ? What have we been 
doing ? Has Christ our Master seen us following his footsteps, 
and going about doing good ? Brethren, we are verily faulty con- 
cerning this. We have been content with public discourses, and 
have not urged each soul to the concerns of salvation. Blessed 
Jesus ! thou knowest the guilt of thy ministers in this respect, 



166 EARNESTNESS IN THE PASTORATE. 

above all others ! We have been divines, we have been scholars, 
we have been disputants, we have been students — we have been 
everything but the holy, self-denying, laborious, consistent minis- 
ters of thy gospel." 

Such, then, is a view, and but an imperfect one, too, of 
an earnest ministry. 

I would have made it more comprehensive and impres- 
sive if I could : for the reality can never be overdrawn nor 
exaggerated. Let any one consider what that object must 
be which occupied the mind of Deity from eternity ; which 
is the end of all the Divine dispensations of creation, 
providence, and grace, towards our world ; which is the 
purpose for which the Son of God expired upon the cross ; 
which formed the substance of revealed truth, and em- 
ployed the lives and pens of apostles ; to which martyrs set 
the seal of their blood : in short, let him recollect that the 
end of the Christian ministry is the salvation of immortal 
souls, through the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ ; 
and then say if anything less than an earnest ministry is 
befitting such an object, or if that earnestness can compre- 
hend in it less than has been set forth in these chapters. 



CHAPTER VII. 

EXAMPLES OF EARNESTNESS. 

The power of example is proverbial. We are constitut- 
ed to be moved by it, as well as directed. It teaches us 
how to act, and impels us to action. Hence the excellence 
of Scripture ; it is a book of models as well as of maxims. 
Towering above all the rest, standing out in bold relief 
beyond all the others, is the character of Christ. He is 
an example to all persons. To the ministers of the gospel, 
this beautiful and perfect embodiment of all that is holy 
and lovely commends itself with peculiar energy. He was 
himself a minister of the gospel, sent by the Father in the 
same manner as he has sent others. He is the great 
model, the divine archetype as a preacher and a teacher, 
after which they are to copy. In his manner of preaching, 
as well as in his matter, he is to be imitated ; in his live- 
liness, his tenderness, his fidelity, his solemnity, he is to be 
closely and constantly followed. We, of all men, are under 
the most solemn obligations to tread in his steps and do as 
he did. But I now select from all his qualities, his ear- 
nestness. In this as well as in everything else he surpass- 
ingly excelled all his most devoted servants. When he 
came into the world he said, " Lo, I come ; in the volume 
cf the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, 



IG8 EXAMPLES OF 

God." When he emerged from his obscurity at Nazareth 
and entered on his public ministry, he commenced a career 
of increasing and untiring activity. His eye, his heart, 
Lis tongue, embraced one object, and one only, — the salva- 
tion of souls. We see him always in action, never in 
repose. Follow him where we will, we find him always 
working, preaching, praying, or weeping, but never loiter- 
ing. He gathered up the very fragments of his time, when 
waiting in the house of Martha for his food, and sitting 
down at the well of Samaria for his disciples who had gone 
into the city to purchase provisions, and employed them in 
doing good. He was the compassionate Saviour, and not 
the cold and heartless philosopher. His preaching was the 
breathing of a soul replete with love, his discourse was the 
overflowing of mercy. He was not a mere personification 
of reason, but an incarnation of love ; and sent forth not 
the moon-beams of a cold intellectuality, but the sun-rays 
of a fervid benevolence. To save souls, he scrupled not to 
go, where, but for this object, we should have never seen 
him, to feasts and weddings, as well as funerals. From 
the hour when he thus addressed his mother, " Wist ye 
not, I must be about my Father's business ?" his meat and 
his drink were to do the will of that Father. He denied 
himself all that was of a luxurious and self-gratifying 
nature ; his only relaxation was devotion, which, after 
laboring all day in the city, he sought by prayer upon the 
mountains and in the midnight air. As a scene of earnest- 
ness, never surpassed till he ascended the hill of Calvary, 
behold him bathed in tears over the guilty city, and choked 
in his utterance by the sobs w T ith which the foresight of 
the approaching destruction of Jerusalem convulsed his 
bosom ! 0, that was a spectacle which was enough to 
draw into a sympathy of grief the moral universe ! What 



EARNESTNESS. 1C9 

a heart that must have been, Which on such a spot, and at 
such a time, could find relief for its intense emotions only 
in tears ! Truly has it been said, that melting scene is 
inferior in pathos, in tender and solemn grandeur, only to 
Calvary itself. But this was only a prelude to what fol- 
lowed. In prospect of the hour of the solemn and myste- 
rious scenes of Gethsemane and Golgotha, he exclaimed, 
" I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I 
straitened till it is accomplished. " His eagerness for man's 
salvation was such that the guilty heart of the traitor was 
too slow in its purpose for his love, and he quickened the 
movements of Judas by those memorable words, " What 
thou doest, do quickly." He made haste to the cross. He 
was almost impatient for the hour of sacrifice. He could 
brook no delay in love's redeeming work. 

Here, ministers of the gospel, here is your pattern. 
This earnestness is your model. You are to be something 
like this. The work of Christ in saving souls is to be re- 
garded in a double aspect by you, both as the means of 
your personal salvation, and the example for your official 
character. We have too much forgotten the latter. Even 
though as Christians we may have looked to his conduct 
as our exemplar, we have too much neglected to do so as 
ministers. As servants, we have not kept our eyes fixed as 
we ought to have done upon the Great Master. Shame 
upon us, how little careful we have been to catch the fire 
of intense and ardent devotedness from this glowing and 
divine example. 

We have seen the sun, let us now turn to the stars : we 
have beheld the Master, let us now contemplate the 
servants. Perhaps the former is so high above you, that 
you are discouraged by its loftiness and perfection : well, 
look now at some nearer your own level. First of all ob- 

15 



1*?0 EXAMPLES OF 

serve tlie apostle Paul ; and where shall we find anything 
so nearly approaching to the earnestness of his divine 
Lord, as the conduct of this wondrous man ? From the 
moment of his conversion on the way to Damascus, he had 
but one object of existence, and that was the glory of God 
in the salvation of souls ; and but one way of seeking it, 
and that was the preaching of the cross. Wherever he 
went, whatever he did, to whomsoever he addressed him- 
self, he was ever watching for souls. Whether reasoning 
with the Jews in their synagogues, or discoursing with the 
philosophers on Mars Hill, or preaching to the voluptuous 
inhabitants of Corinth, or appealing to the Ephesian elders 
at Miletus, or pleading in chains the cause of Christianity 
before the tribunal of Festus in the presence of Agrippa, 
or writing letters from prison to the churches he had 
planted, we find him everywhere, and always, the earnest 
minister of Jesus Christ. There is one expression in his 
address to the Ephesian elders which reveals, in a short 
compass, the whole spirit and marrow of his preaching : 
" Remember that by the space of three years, I ceased not 
to warn every one of you night and day with tears." The 
terror of the Roman government could not extract from 
his firmness a single drop ; but the sight of an immortal 
soul perishing in its iniquity, and pleased with its delusions, 
altogether unmanned him, and suffused his face with tears, 
which in other eases would have been the sign of weak- 
ness. O those tears, those tears ; how they reprove us for 
our insensibility, and how they prove to us our deficiencies. 
Every view we can take of this illustrious servant of the 
cross fills us with astonishment and admiration. His con- 
version and history seem designed to teach us what energy 
may be compressed into one human heart, to be developed 
in one single life ; what sufferings may be endured, what 



EARNESTNESS. 171 

power exerted, what results produced, by one mar, who 
is constrained by the love of Christ, and filled with all the 
fulness of God ; and what God can accomplish, in fulfilling 
the purposes of his wisdom and love, by the instrumen- 
talitr ot an individual of our species. There is a short 
sentence in his epistle to the Philippians, which, in a few 
words, sums up his whole life and labors, — " For me to 
live js Christ." What a compass of meaning, what a 
manifestation of soul, what a comprehension of purpose 
and plan, do those few monosyllables contain ! " Christ is 
my life : apart from him. and his work I seem to have no 
separate existence : I have grown into that one object." 

This is earnestness : and what obligation rested on Paul 
to cultivate it, which does not rest on us ? What was 
Christ to him, which he ought not to be to us ? Why 
should he thus labor for souls, and not we ? Is there a 
single reason which appertains to him, that does not ap- 
pertain to us ? Ministers of Christ, read this great man's 
life with a view to know what you ought to be, and how 
you ought to live and labor. In view of what this blessed 
apostle was, and how he labored, will you be satisfied with 
cold intellectuality, flowery orations, subtle metaphysics ; 
with thinking you have answered the end of your calling 
when you have composed two sermons a week, and kept 
the people tolerably well satisfied with your labors ? Will 
you think it enough to be a close student, a hard reader, 
a good writer — though all this while souls are not con- 
verted to God, nor the cause of religion advanced in the 
world? Talk you of hard /abor, and severe trials, and 
scanty incomes, and ungrateful congregations, and fickle 
friends ? listen to his tale, and be silent : " In labors more 
abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more fre- 
quent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I 



1*72 EXAMPLES OF 

forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, 
once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwr^k, a night ana 
a day have I been in the deep ; in journey ings often, in 
perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own 
countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, 
in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils 
among false brethren ; in weariness and painfulness, in 
watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, 
in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are 
without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care 
of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not 
weak ? who is offended, and I burn not ?" Is there to be 
found in human composition such a passage as this ? In 
reading this who can help asking, What have / done or 
suffered for Christ, that can give me a title to be ranked as 
a minister of Christ after this ? 

But perhaps this also is too lofty an example to have 
much weight with you ; then take an instance next from the 
Nonconformist's Memorial. It appears from the diary of 
that eminent servant of Christ, Oliver Heywood, that in 
one year, beside his stated work on the Lord's day, he 
preached one hundred and fifty times ; kept fifty days of 
fasting and prayer, and nine of thanksgiving ; and travelled 
fourteen hundred miles in the service of Christ and immor- 
tal souls. And when we consider that these journeys 
must have been either on foot or on horseback, this dis- 
tance was more than ten thousand miles by our modern 
railways. And then think of Baxter, that wondrous man, 
who, though hunted and imprisoned by the demon of 
persecution, and • tortured with the stone, was always 
preaching and writing, tiil he had composed and published 
those hundred and twenty volumes, the very writing of 
which, as to the mechanical act alone, seemed enough to 



EARNESTNESS. 170 

occupy a whole life, and of the contents of which the cele- 
brated Dr. Barrow said, that "his practical works were 
never mended, nor his controversial ones ever confuted. " 

Now turn to those extraordinary men, Wesley and 
Whitfield ; and who of us can read the account preserved 
to us of their amazing labors, and equally amazing success, 
"without something of a self-reproachful and desponding 
feelinof, as if we were living almost in vain ? When we see 
them dividing their whole lives between the pulpit, the 
closet, and the class-room ; sacrificing all domestic enjoy- 
ment and personal ease ; encountering savage mobs, and 
addressing congregated thousands; pacing backward and 
forward the whole length of the kingdom, and crossing the 
ocean many times ; moving the population of cities, and 
filling nations with the fame and the fruit of their evan- 
gelical labors ; breathing little else than the atmosphere of 
crowded chapels and preaching-rooms, except when they 
lifted up their voice under the canopy of heaven ; regaling 
themselves, not with the dainties of the table, nor the 
repose of the soft, luxurious couch, but with the tears of 
the penitent, and the songs of the rejoicing believer; 
making it their one and only business to seek the salvation 
of souls, and their one and only happiness to rejoice in the 
number of their conversions ; indifferent alike to the savage 
fury of their persecutors, and the fondest flatteries of their 
followers ; sometimes rising from the bed of sickness to 
address the multitude in circumstances which rendered it 
probable they would exchange the pulpit for the tomb ; to 
sum up all in one short sentence, wearing out life in labor 
so great that it looked as if they were in haste to die : 
when we see this, how can we endure to think of the way 
in which we are living, or scarcely imagine that we are 
living at all ? How can we read their lives, and not blush 



174 EXAMPLES OF 

for ourselves? How can we witness their earnestness, 
and not feel as if we knew nothing of the passion for saving 
souls ? 

And what shall be said of Brainerd, the missionary of 
• Christ, and preacher of the gospel to the American 
Indians ? See him harassed by a nervous and gloomy de- 
jection, wearing down by a slow consumption ; yet, for the 
love of souls, dwelling amidst savages, helping to build his 
own comfortless and ill-furnished hut; living at times on 
parched corn; travelling and benighted in the woods, 
sleeping, if sleep he could, wet and cold, in a tree ; throw- 
ing himself down, on his return to his own solitary dwelling, 
on his hard bed, with none to comfort him ; and, amidst all 
this, long tried and harassed by the want of success in his 
apostolical labors — and all this for the love of souls, and 
the glory of Christ ! Where, where, even among mod- 
ern missionaries, to say nothing of ministers at home, do 
we find this rigorous self-denial, this self-sacrificing dis- 
position, this intense desire after the salvation of souls ! 

We may profitably refer to one more instance of minis- 
terial devotedness — that is, the excellent Dr. Payson, of 
America, whose biography should be read by every Chris- 
tian pastor. Many have read it, and we would hope with 
no small advantage. During his ministry his solicitude for 
the salvation of souls was so earnest, that he impaired his 
health by the frequency of his fastings and the impor- 
tunity of his prayers. His whole life was spent in one 
constant series of efforts to produce revivals of religion ; 
and the anguish of his mind when his labors failed, was so 
acute, as to bring on bodily disease. It was said of him 
by his biographer, that his language, his conversation, and 
his whole deportment were such as brought home and 
fastened on the minds of his hearers the conviction, that 



EARNESTNESS. 175 

lie believed, and therefore spolce. So important did he re- 
gard such a conviction in the attendants on his ministry, 
that he made it the topic of one of his addresses to his 
clerical brethren, which he entitled, " The importance of 
convincing our hearers that toe believe what we preach." 
In the course of this address he remarks, that a minister, 
" in delivering his message as an ambassador of Christ, 
would show that he felt deeply penetrated with a convic- 
tion of its truth and infinite importance. He would speak 
like one whose whole soul was filled with his subject. He 
would speak of Christ and his salvation, as a grateful, ad- 
miring people would speak of a great and generous deliv- 
erer, who had devoted his life for the welfare of his coun- 
try. He would speak of eternity, as one whose eye had 
been wearied by attempting to penetrate its unfathomable 
recesses, and describe its awful realities, like a man who 
stood on the verge of time, and had lifted the veil which 
conceals them from the view of mortals. Thoughts that 
glow and words that burn would compose his public ad- 
dresses, and while a sense of the dignity of his official 
character, and the infinite importance of his subject, would 
lead him to speak as one having authority, with indescrib- 
able solemnity, weight and energy, a full recollection that 
he was by nature a child of wrath, and that he was ad- 
dressing fellow men and fellow sinners, mingled with com- 
•passion for their wretched state, and an ardent desire after 
Their salvation, would spread ail air of tenderness over his 
discourses, and invest him wiin that affectionate, melting, 
persuasive correctness of manner, which is best calculated 
to affect and penetrate the heart. To say all in one word, 
he would speak like an ambassador of Him who spake as 
never man spake, and who would say, ' We speak that wo 
do know, and testify that we have seen !' " 



1TG EXAMPLES OE 

When disabled by increasing disease from preaching, Dr. 
Paysox carried with him into his sick chamber all his un- 
diminished earnestness for the salvation of souls. Beinor 
present on one occasion at the administration of the Lord's 
Supper, he rose, and thus addressed his flock : " Ever 
since I became a minister, it has been my earnest wish that 
I might die from disease which would allow me to preach 
a farewell sermon to my people ; but as it is not probable 
I shall ever be able to do this, I will attempt to say a few 
words now ; it may be the last time I shall ever address 
you. This is not merely a presentiment : it is an opinion 
founded on facts, and maintained by physicians who know 
my case, that I shall never behold another spring. 

"And now, standing on the borders of the eternal world, 
I look back upon my past ministry, and on the manner in 
which I have performed its duties ; and oh, my hearers, if 
you have not performed your duties better than I have 
done, woe ! woe ! be to you — unless you have an Advo- 
cate and Intercessor in heaven. We have lived together 
twenty years, and have spent more than a thousand Sab- 
baths together, and I have given you at least two thousand 
warnings. I am now going to give an account hoiv they 
were given ; and you, my hearers, will soon have to give 
an account how they were received. One more warning I 
will give you. Once more your shepherd, who will be 
yours no longer, entreats you to flee from the wrath to- 
come. Oh, let me have the happiness of seeing my dear 
people attend to their eternal interests, that I may not 
have reason to say, ' I have labored in vain, I have spent 
my strength for nought.' " 

After this he entered the chapel but once more. Con- 
fined now to his house and to his room, he still carried out 
bis intense desires to be useful in saving souls, by dictating 



EARNESTNESS. 177 

letters and addresses to individuals and to bodies. Per- 
sons under anxious concern for their salvation, young con- 
verts entering on the Christian life, ministers just com- 
mencing the arduous duties of their office, and various 
bodies and classes of individuals, among whom were the 
young men, were sent for to visit him in his sick chamber, 
and receive his dying counsels and admonitions. What 
messages also went forth from that scene of agony and of 
glory, to ministers and friends ! His " ruling passion was 
strong in death. " His love for preaching was as invincible 
as that of the miser for gold, who dies grasping his treas- 
ure. Dr. Payson directed a label to be attached to his 
breast, with the words, " Remember the words which I have 
spoken unto you, while I was yet present with you ;" that 
they might be read by all who came to look at his corpse ; 
and by which he being dead, yet spake. The same words, 
at the request of his people, were engraven on the plate of 
the coffin, and read by thousands on the day of inter- 
ment. 

Here was a beautiful instance of ministerial earnestness, 
and if I have dwelt longer on this than on some of the 
still more illustrious ones which have preceded it, the rea- 
son may be found in the fact that it is the example of a 
minister of our own times, and placed in nearly the same 
circumstances as ourselves ; and also in the wish that many 
who have not read this most instructive piece of ministerial 
biography, may be induced by these extracts to peruse the 
volume. That man's heart must be in a bad state indeed, 
both as a Christian and a minister, who is not made the 
holier and more earnest by contemplating this bright and 
lovely example. 

Leaving the ministry, and turning towards the laity for 
some rares examples of unquenchable ard3r, we find two* 



1*78 EXAMPLES OF 

deserving, above most, of honorable mention and assiduous 
imitation — Lady Huntingdon, and the late Thomas Wil- 
son, Esq., of Highbury. In the former we see a peeress, 
related of course to many noble families, to whom the hon- 
ors of the court and the elegancies of fashion were accessi- 
ble, relinquishing, from the hour of her conversion to God, 
all these pomps and gaities of the world, and consecrating 
her rank, her influence, and her wealth, to the glory of 
God and the salvation of souls ; quitting the saloons of the 
gay for the conventicles of the pious ; and the society of 
nobles, statesmen, orators, and wits, to hold converse with 
itinerant preachers ; selling her jewels to enable her to 
purchase chapels ; opening her own drawing-room for re- 
ligious worship ; and unmoved or undiverted by the won- 
der, the reproach, and the sneers of a proud and scoffing 
aristocracy ; pursuing, with an intensity which they could 
as little comprehend as they could the object to which it 
was directed, the spread of evangelical truth and the sal- 
vation of immortal souls, both among the rich and the 
poor. In this one object her whole life was bound up, 
apart from which she had neither occupation nor enjoy- 
ment. 

Pretty much the same may be said of the late Treasurer 
of Highbury College. We waited not for the very valua- 
ble and interesting memoir of this inestimable man, with 
which his son has favored the world, to convince us of this ; 
much as the conviction is deepened, and the impression 
perpetuated, by the tout ensemble of the life and character 
there presented to our view : those who knew Mr. Wilson- - 
and who in the religious circle of all parties did not kno rr 
him ? — ever considered him as a man of extraordinary ze. il 
and great benevolence, and a most useful specimen of La 
earnest man. This character will be assigned to him, evt * 



EARNESTNESS. 1T9 

by those who differed from him in some views of the object 
on which he lavished the energies of his active mind, and 
the resources of his ample fortune. But now that the 
whole outward career of this indefatigable man is laid be- 
fore us, and the mechanism of his heart, as the spring of 
his energy, is disclosed to us in this seasonable and instruct- 
ive biography, we learn the important lesson how much 
one man, whose heart is given to the work, may accom- 
plish in the way of evangelizing our dark and wretched 
world. Perhaps modern times have produced or presented 
few more striking instances of that quality of character 
which it is the design of this volume to illustrate and to en- 
force. He selected his one object of life, and that was the 
support and spread of evangelical religion, by means of 
building chapels, and the education and support of minis- 
ters, in connection with the denomination to which he be- 
longed. For this he retired from business, and consecrated 
to it his time, his fortune, his influence, and his piety. 
His journeys from home, and his occupation at home, were 
in a great measure devoted to this. He had his office, his 
clerk, his house of business, his correspondence, in refer- 
ence to this, as much as the merchant has for his commer- 
cial affairs. To this was given his conversation in company, 
and his musing and letters when alone. The consumma- 
tion of one scheme of usefulness in his own line of effort, 
was but the commencement of another. While others 
talked, he worked. We knew where to find him, and how 
he was employed. If a voice from heaven had command- 
ed him to build chapels, and educate ministers, he could 
not have pursued this object with more fixedness of aim, 
unity of action, and steady perseverance, than he mani- 
fested. He knew his object, and therefore needed no coun- 
sel : he loved it, and suffered nothing to divert his mind 



180 EXAMPLES OF EARNESTNESS. 

from it ; he saw its practicability, and hearkened to no ob- 
jections. If others would act with him, well ; and if not, 
he would go alone. It was not brilliant talents, nor a 
princely fortune, nor a commanding eloquence — though he 
had good abilities, a handsome income, and an easy utter- 
ance — but it was earnestness, that made him what he was, 
and enabled him to do what he did. Yes, Thomas Wil- 
son was an earnest man : and would to God that all whom 
he helped to introduce into the ministry partook, in the 
still more sacred duties of their calling, of the same inten- 
sity of action as he did in his. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MOTIVES TO EARNESTNESS, 

AND THE INDISPENSABLE NECESSITY OF IT. 

1. It is demanded alike by the theme and the object of it. 

When Pilate proposed to the illustrious prisoner at his 
bar the question, What is truth ? he placed before him the 
most momentous subject winch can engage the attention 
of a rational creature ; and if Christ refused to give an 
answer, his silence is to be accounted for by the captious 
or trifling spirit of the querist, and not by any supposed 
insignificance of the question, since truth is the most valu- 
able thing in the universe, next to holiness ; and it is truth 
that is the theme of our ministry, even that which by way 
of eminence and distinction is called the truth. Take any 
branch of general science, be it what it may, and how- 
ever valuable and important it may be considered, its most 
enthusiastic student and admirer cannot claim for it, far 
excellence, that supremacy which is implied in the definite 
article, the truth. Who shall adjust the claims for this 
distinction, between the various sciences of natural and 
moral truth, and declare which is the rightful possessor of 
the throne, against the false pretensions of usurpers ? 
Who? The God of truth himself: and he has done it; 

16 



182 MOTIVES TO 

and placing the Bible on the seat of majesty in the temple 
of truth, has called upon all systems of philosophy what- 
ever, to fall down and do it homage. This is our subject : 
eternal, immutable truth — truth given pure from its divine 
source, and given with the evidence and impress of its own 
omniscient Author. Oh, what are the loftiest and noblest 
of the sciences ; — chemistry, with its beautiful combinations 
and affinities ; or astronomy, with its astounding numbers, 
magnitudes, distances, and revolutions of worlds ; or geo- 
logy, with its marvellous and incalculable dates of by-gone 
millions of ages ; — to the truths of revelation ? What is 
dead, inert matter, with its laws of materiality, — however 
diversified, classified, or combined, — compared with the 
world of mind, of souls, of immateriality and immortality, 
and with the laws of moral truth by which they are regu- 
lated ? What is nature, to the God of nature ? what 
the heavens and the earth, to the glorious mind that looks 
out upon them through the organ of vision, as from a win- 
dow that commands the grand and boundless prospect ? 
what the fleeting term of man's existence upon earth, 
with its little cycles of care, and sorrow, and labor, com- 
pared with the eternal ages through which the soul holds 
on her course of deathless existence ? The works of crea- 
tion are a dim and twilight manifestation of God's nature, 
compared with the grandeur and more perfect medium of 
redemption. The person of the Lord Jesus Christ is itself 
a wonder, and a mystery, which shall shine all other dis- 
plays of Deity into darkness ; this is the shekinah in the 
holy of holies of the temple of God's creation, towards 
which, as they bend over the mercy-seat of his work of 
redemption, all orders of created spirits, from the most dis- 
tant parts of the universe, reverently turn and do homage 
to the great God our Saviour. This, this is our theme — 



EARNESTNESS. 1 S3 

the truth of God, and concerning him ; the truth of an 
incarnate Deity ; the truth of man's redemption by the 
cro^s ; the truth of the moral law, the eternal standard of 
rectitude, the tree of knowledge of good and evil; the 
truth of the gospel, as the tree of life in the midst of the 
paradise of God ; the truth of immortality, and of heaven, 
and of hell; the truth couched under the symbols of the 
Levitical law, and the predictions of inspired prophets, 
and fully exhibited in the gospels of evangelists, and the 
inspired letters of apostles. Again I ask exultingly and 
rapturously, what are the discoveries of Newton, or of 
Davy, or the inventions of Watt, or of Arkwright, com- 
pared with these ? Viewing man in his relation to immor- 
tality, as a sinful and moral agent, what is art or science, 
compared with revealed truth? And shall we, can we, 
be otherwise than earnest in the promulgation of this truth ? 
Shall we touch such themes with a careless hand, and a 
dronish mind ? Shall we slumber over truths which keep 
awake the attention, and keep in activity the energies of 
all orders of created intelligences, and which are the object 
and the resting-place of the uncreated mind ? Let us 
look at the earnestness with which the sons of science pur- 
sue their studies : with what enthusiasm they delve into 
the earth, or soar on the telescope to the heavens, or hang 
over the fire ; with what prolonged and patient research 
they carry on their experimtnts, and pursue their analyses ; 
how unwearied in toil, and how enduring in disappoint- 
ment, they are ; and then how rapturously they hold up 
to the world's gazing and wondering eye some new parti- 
cle of truth, which they have found out after all this peer- 
ing and prying into nature's undiscovered secrets ! Minis- 
ters of the gospel, is it thus with the men who have to 
find out the truths of na ;ure, and shall we, who have the 



184 MOTIVES TO 

volume of inspired, revealed truth opened before us, drone, 
and loiter, and trifle over such momentous realities? Shall 
the example of earnestness be taken frcju him who analyzes 
man's lifeless flesh, to tell us bv the laws of organic chem- 
istry its component parts, rather than from him who has 
to do with the truths that relate to the immortal soul ? 
Shall he whose discoveries and lessons have no higher ob- 
ject than our material globe, and no longer date than its 
existence, be more intensely in earnest, than we who have 
to do with the truth that relates to God and the whole 
moral universe, and the truth that is to last through eter- 
nity ? What deep shame should cover us for our want of 
ardor and enthusiasm in such a service as this ! 

And then what is the purpose for which this truth, so 
grand, so awful, so sublime, is revealed by God, and to be 
preached by us ? Not simply to gratify curiosity ; not 
merely to conduct the mind seeking for knowledge, to the 
fountains where it may slake its thirst ; no, but to save the 
immortal soul from sin, and death, and hell, and conduct 
it to the abodes of a glorious immortality. The man whc 
can handle such topics, and for such a purpose, in an un- 
impassioned, careless manner, and an icy heart, is the most 
astounding instance of guilty lukewarmness in the uni- 
verse : to his self-contradiction no parallel can be found : 
and he remains a fearful instance how far it is possible for 
the human mind to go in the most obvious, palpable, and 
guilty inconsistency. A want of earnestness in the execu- 
tion of that commission which is designed to save immor- 
tal souls from eternal ruin, and raise them to everlasting 
life, is a spectacle which, if it were not so common, would 
fill us with amazement, indignation, and contempt. We 
have read the speeches of the great masters of eloquence, 
both of ancient and modern times; and have read also of 



EARNESTNESS. 185 

the intense anxiety, and untiring effort, with which they 
have sustained by corresponding efforts, the mighty pe- 
riods that flashed from their burning souls : and do we con- 
demn as enthusiasts the Athenian orator who thus ago- 
nized to save his country from the yoke of Philip ; the 
majestic Roman who roused the indignation of the repub- 
lic against the treason of Cataline ; or our own Wilber- 
force, who for twenty years lifted his voice, and appealed 
to the justice and mercy of a British Parliament, against 
the atrocities of the slave trade ? On the contrary, we 
deem no eulogy sufficient to express our admiration of 
their noble enthusiasm. But our panegyric upon them is 
a condemnation upon ourselves ; for how far short of them 
do we fall in earnestness, though the salvation of a single 
soul, out of all the multitudes that come under the influ- 
ence of our ministrations, is an event, which in its conse- 
quences is inconceivably more momentous, because endur- 
ing through eternity, than all the objects, collectively, for 
which these men exhausted the energies of their intellect 
and life. Do we really believe that vre are either a savor 
of life unto life, or of death unto death, to them that hear 
us ? Or is this mere official phraseology, which is never 
intended to be understood in its ordinary import ? Is it 
a matter of fact, or only the solemn garnish of a sermon, 
the trickery and puffing of pulpit vanity, that souls are 
perpetually rising from beneath our ministry into the felici- 
ties and honors of the skies, or dropping from around our 
desk into the bottomless pit ? Are companies of immor- 
tal spirits continually emigrating from our congregations 
to colonize eternity, to people heaven or hell, to swell the 
numbers of the redeemed, or to add to the multitude of 
the lost ? If this be true, and we are gross deceivers, 
mere pulpit actors, reverend hypocrites, if we do not 

16* 



186 MOTIVES TO 

believe in their truth, — then where is the earnestness that 
must give consistency to our professions, and which is 
appropriate to our situation, and adequate to our convic- 
tions ? Have we really become so carelessly, so criminally 
familiar with such topics as salvation and damnation, that 
we can descant upon them with the same calmness, coolness, 
not to say indifference, with which the public lecturer will 
discuss one of the minutest branches of natural philoso- 
phy ? O where is our reason, our religion, our consist- 
ency ? 

II. Earnestness is imperatively demanded by the state of 
the human mind, vieioed in relation to the truths and the 
object just set forth. 

This was glanced at in an earlier part of the work, but 
must be now resumed and amplified. The entreating and 
beseeching importunity employed by the apostle, and which 
are found to be no less necessary to us, presuppose, on the 
part of its objects, reluctance to come into a state of recon- 
ciliation with God, which must be assailed by the force of 
vehement persuasion. Although we have to treat with a 
revolted world, a world engaged in mad conflict with 
Omnipotence, yet, if the guilty rebels were weary of their 
hostilities, and in utter hopelessness of success, were pre- 
pared, on the first offer of mercy, to throw down their 
arms, and in the spirit of contrition to sue for pardon, ours 
would be an easy mission, and we might spare ourselves 
the trouble of earnestness and expostulation. But the 
very reverse is the case. "The carnal mind is enmity 
against God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither 
indeed can be." The hearts of men are fully set in them 
to do evil. We find them taken up, occupied, influenced, 
governed, by the palpable and visible things of the present 
life ; and our business is* to engage them in a constant 



EARNESTNESS. 187 

resistance of the undue influence of the things which are 
seen and temporal, and to do this by a vigorous faith in 
things that are unseen and eternal. Our aim and labor are, 
by the power of the unseen world to come, to deliver them 
from the spell of the present state, with whose pageantry 
they are enamored, and under whose fascination they are 
well pleased to continue. And then, apart from, or at any 
rate in connection with this, they are so occupied by the 
pursuits of business, so engrossed by the cares, the com- 
forts, and the trials of life, engaged in such breathless 
haste to pursue, such distracting bustle to possess, and such 
ardent hope to enjoy, the various objects of their earthly 
desires, that when we call their attention to serious relig- 
ion, as the one thing needful, we are as one who would 
stop another in a race to offer him an object foreign to that 
for which he is contending, and who, by the competitor 
for the prize, is deemed intrusive, impertinent, and ob- 
structive. 

But the difficulty stops not here : if this were all, we 
should have only a very small share of the opposition 
which now calls forth our energy and requires our most 
strenuous efforts ; for when we have succeeded in gaining 
a hearing and arresting attention, we have to contend, not 
only with an indisposition to receive the truth, but a deter- 
mined hostility against it. We have, as our first business, 
to fasten a charge of guilt upon men naturally disposed to 
think well of themselves : to produce a sense of utter 
worthlessness and depravity in those, who, in the utmost 
length to which their concession will go, admit only some 
few imperfections and infirmities ; to displace a feeling of 
complacency by one of self-condemnation and abhorrence ; 
and to substitute for a general and unhumbled dependence 
upon divine mercy, such a conviction of exposure to the 



188 MOTIVES TO 

curse of a violated law, as makes it difficult for the trem- 
bling penitent to see how his pardon can be harmonized 
with the claims of justice ; to offer salvation upon terms 
which leave not the smallest room for self-gra tula t ion, or 
the operation of pride ; indeed, to carry such a message as 
frequently excites disgust, and calls forth the bitterest 
enmity of the human heart, and arms all its passions in 
determined hostility. And then the salvation exhibited in 
the gospel is not only opposed to the pride, but to the 
passions of the soul of fallen man. It requires the excis- 
ion of sins dear as a light hand, the surrender of objects 
which have enamored the whole soul, the breaking up of 
habits which have grown with our growth, and strength- 
ened with our strength. Sometimes we have, in addition 
to all this, to summon our hearers to a war without, as 
well as a conflict within, and to verify the words of Christ, 
that he came to send a sword instead of peace, and to set 
parents against children, and children against parents. 
What minister has not sometimes felt his very courage 
ready to quail, and his steadfastness in danger of faltering, 
when called to lead on some persecuted convert to brave 
the cruel mockings and reproaches, the frowns, the threats, 
and the violence, of his nearest and dearest earthly con- 
nections ? I agonize as I write, to think what I, among 
others, have witnessed of this kind. Yerily it is through 
much tribulation, that some, even in these peaceful times, 
are called to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And then, 
to follow on the difficulties of the Christian ministry, to 
prevent the first impressions of divine truth from vanishing 
like the cloud, or exhaling like the dew ; to guide the inquirer 
from finding repose anywhere but at the cross of Christ ; 
to guard the feeble, and to inspire the timid with courage ; 
to detect the deceit of the heart, and to aid the novice in 



EARNESTNESS. 189 

breaking off from besetting sins; to inspire the resolution 
to crucify the flesh, and to stimulate the soul to an ever 
onward progress in sanctification; to meet the epidemic 
malady of our nature, which assumes so many shapes, 
and appears under such a variety of symptoms, with a 
proportionate and well-adapted variety of treatment ; to 
help the believer to beat down his foes under his feet, and 
amidst all his various trials, temptations, and difficulties, to 
continue steadfast, immovable, and always abounding in 
the work of the Lord, notwithstanding the conteracting 
influence of much unremoved corruption in his heart; — 
this, all this, must require in him who has to do it, ear- 
nestness of the most collected and concentrated kind. To 
carry on the ministry of reconciliation in this revolted 
world, with the intention and desire of recovering its inhab- 
itants from sin and Satan unto God, when the opposition 
to be overcome is considered, must appear to every reflect- 
ing mind the most hopeless of all human undertakings, 
apart from the promised aid of the Holy Spirit. It is this 
alone that could induce us to continue in the ministry 
another hour. Without this agency, we must retire in 
utter despair. But then, even this is not to be viewed, 
much less expected, apart from human instrumentality ; 
and man's earnestness is that very species of instrumental- 
ity which the Divine Agent employs. It is not the feeble 
ministrations of the lukewarm and the neo-liaent that God 
blesses for the conversion of souls, but the heart-breathed 
fervent wrestlings of the ardent and the diligent. He 
maketh the winds his messengers, and flames of fire his 
ministers. Here, then, is a double argument for earnest- 
ness, in the difficulties which are to be subdued in the ac- 
complishment of our object, and the co-operating agency 
of the Spirit of God. The former shows its indispensable 



190 MOTIVES TO 

necessity, and the latter encourages us o put it forth. 
Without it, we cannot look for the aid of -he Spirit ; and 
without the aid of the Spirit, it would be exerted in vain. 
May we be able to take a right view of our obstacles and 
our resources. 

III. Consider the aspect of the times, as affecting the hu- 
man mind, and the objects of our ministry. 

The view which has been just given of the difficulties 
that lie in the way of the faithful minister, applies to all 
countries and to all times, inasmuch as the depravity of 
human nature is co-extensive with the race of man. But 
still there may, and do, exist circumstances in one age 
and country, to give greater force to these difficulties, 
which are not found, at any rate to the same amount, in 
others. The features of our own age are stiikingly im- 
pressive, and in no small degree hostile to the success of 
the gospel, and the prevalence of evangelical piety. 

The sphere of human pursuits, whether we consider the 
active or speculative departments, is filled with unusual 
energy and excitement. Earnestness is the characteristic 
of the age. If we turn our attention to trade, we see men 
throwing their whole soul into its busy occupations, and 
laboring as if their salvation in another world depended 
upon their success on earth. What ardor of competition ; 
what rage for speculation ; what looking about for novel 
schemes, and what eagerness to embrace them when of- 
fered ; what hazardous and reckless gambling, do we see 
going on all around us, — leaving out the impetus to all 
this which the railway system has introduced, and saying 
nothing of the multitudes who, instead of plodding onward 
in the beaten path of regular trade, endeavor, by watch- 
ing the share market, to make a bound to wealth,— how 
engrossing are the pursuits of secular business, in these days 



EARNESTNESS. 191 

of large returns and small profits. Think of the consump- 
tion of time, and the absorption of soul, which are neces- 
sary to maintain credit and respectability; and also the 
strength of religious principle which is indispensable to 
follow the things that are just, and true, and honorable, 
and of good report. How many professors are in danger 
of being carried away, how many are carried away, by the 
tricks, artifices, and all but actual dishonesties of modern 
trade : and what but a powerful and energetic ministry can 
be expected to rouse and help God's professing people to 
bear up against, and to keep in check, much more to sub- 
due, this sordid and selfish spirit ? What can be sufficient 
but an intense devotedness on the part of ministers to 
make things unseen and eternal bear down the usurping 
power of things seen and temporal ? Who but the man 
that knows how to deal with invisible realities, and wield 
the powers of the world to come, can pluck the worldling 
from the whirlpool of perdition which sucks down so many 
in the torrents of earthly-mindedness, or prevent the pro- 
fessing Christian from being drawn into it ? If our own 
minds are not much impressed with the awful glories and 
terrors of eternity, we shall not and cannot speak of these 
tilings in such a manner as is likely to rescue our hearers 
from the ruinous fascinations of mammon. How in such 
an age we seem to want a Baxter and a Doolittle ; an 
Edwards and a Howe ; a Whitfield and a Wesley ; to 
break in with their thunder upon the money -loving, money- 
getting spirit of this grossly utilitarian age. 

Then think of the engrossing power of politics. What 
a spell has come over the popular mind, from this source, 
since that tremendous outburst, the French Revolution ! 
For more than half a century the potency of this subject 
has been perpetually augmenting, till the rustic of the 



192 motives ro 

village, as well as the merchant of the ciiy , the recluse 
student of the cloister, no less than the man of the ex- 
change, have alike yielded themselves up to the fascina- 
tions of the newspaper, now accommodated, not only to 
every party in politics, but to every creed in religion, and 
at the same time cheapened down to almost the poorest 
member of society. This is matter neither of surprise, nor, 
provided it do not thrust out other and still more impor- 
tant matters, of regret. It is but the constitution of our 
country developing the energies of its popular element. 
The people are claiming their share of power and influence : 
may they prepare themselves by knowledge and piety to 
exercise it rightly. The stream and tendency of opinion in 
Europe at large, as well as in our own country, is evidently 
democratic ; but without education and religion, the nations 
will daily become desirous of more liberty, and at the same 
time less capable of enjoying and preserving it. The less 
they feel of outward force and of the compulsion of secu- 
lar power, the more they need the control of moral prin- 
ciples. At such a time, when the elements of good gov- 
ernment are, so to speak, in a high state of excitement, and 
amidst much repulsion and attraction amongst themselves, 
are settling into their proper order, there will be such an 
unusual degree of interest felt in this great matter, as to 
throw into the shade matters of still deeper moment. 

In sight of this, will any one deny that we want an 
earnest ministry to break in some degree the spell, and 
leave the soul at liberty for the affairs of a kingdom which 
is not of this world ? When politics have come upon the 
minds, and hearts, and imaginations of the people for six 
days out of the seven, invested with the charms of elo- 
quence, and decked with the colors of party ; when the 
orator and the writer have both thrown the witchery of 



EARNESTNESS. 193 

choir genius over the soul ; how can it be expected that 
tame, spiritless, vapid common-places from the pulpit, — 
sermons without cither head or heart, having neither 
weight of matter, nor grace of manner, neither genius to 
compensate for the want of taste, nor taste to compensate 
for the want of genius ; and what is still w r orse, having no 
unction of evangelical truth, no impress of eternity, no ra- 
diance from heaven, no terror from hell ; in short, no 
adaptation to awaken reflection, produce conviction, or 
save the soul, — how can it be expected, I say, that such 
sermons can be useful to accomplish the purposes for which 
the gospel is to be preached ? What chance have such 
preachers to be heard or felt, or what claim have they, 
amidst the high excitement of the times in which they live ? 
Their hearers too often feel, that in listening to their ser- 
mons on the Sabbath, as compared with what they have 
heard or read during the week, they seem as if they were 
turning from the brilliant and tasteful gas-light to the dim 
and smoking spark of the tallow and the rush. 

Another characteristic of our age is an ever-growing 
taste for elegance, refinement, and luxurious gratification. 
We cannot wonder at this, nor, if it be kept within proper 
bounds, greatly regret it. It is next to impossible that the 
progress of art, and the increase of wealth, should not add 
to the embellishments of life, and multiply the sources of 
tasteful enjoyment. But then, just in proportion as we 
multiply the attractions of earth, is our danger of making 
it our all, of leaving heaven out of sight, and learning to 
do without it. This is affecting the church, and the hardy 
and self-denying spirit of Christianity is in danger of being 
emasculated, and of degenerating into a soft and sickly 
effeminacy. Elegance and extravagance, luxurious enter- 
tainments and expensive feasts, are beginning to corrupt the 

17 



194 MOTIVES TO 

simplicity that is in Christ; and amidst sumptuous build- 
ings, gorgeous furniture, costly dress, and gay equipages, 
professors of religion are too much setting their affections 
on things that are upon the earth, and turning away from 
the glory of the cross to the glory of the world. Who is 
to call them off from this pageantry, and make them by 
God's grace feel how vain are all these things ? Who can 
set up a breakwater against the billows of this ocean of 
worldly-mindedness, and guard the piety of the church 
from being entirely swept away by a flood of ungodliness? 
Who but a pastor that can speak in power and demon- 
stration of the Spirit, — a man who shall rise Sabbath after 
Sabbath in the pulpit, clothed with a potency to throw 
into shadow, by his vivid representations of heaven and 
eternity, all these painted nothings on which his hearers 
are in danger of squandering their immortal souls ? 

Akin to this is a continually augmenting desire after 
amusement. A love for pleasure, diversion, and recreation, 
is an appetite evidently increasing, for which there are 
those who are ever ingenious and ever busy to furnish a 
supply. Religion is no enemy to rational enjoyment, even 
though it be not strictly spiritual ; and they who can sup- 
plant the low and vulgar sensualities on which the multi- 
tude have fed, by a more refined and elevated taste, even 
if it should not rise into the element of religion, are doing: 
a service to their country and to their species. But still, 
a taste for amusement, both mental and bodily, may be 
carried too far, and many foreseeing and deeply reflective 
minds are of opinion that it is going too far now. 

There cannot be a thoughtful mind, one that looks upon 
our sojourn in this world as a probation for eternity, but 
must reflect with serious alarm and grief upon the endless 
devices which are suggested by the wisdom tlat cometh 



EARNESTNESS. -95 

from beneath, to hide from mankind thtir duty and their 
destiny as immortal creatures. It seems as if by common 
consent, mankind were striving who should be most suc- 
cessful, by inventing new kinds of diversions, in blotting 
from the mind all considerations of eternity. Pleasure- 
taking is the rage of the day, a taste which has been excited 
into a hungry appetite by the railway system. Before 
this desolating influence, the sanctity of the Sabbath, and 
with it of course the prevalence of religion, are likely to 
be destroyed. It may be said that anything is better than 
the ale-house and the gin-shop. This is freely admitted, but 
it may be questioned whether some of the modern stimu- 
lants to pleasure do not lead to, and not from, these scenes 
of iniquity. The people, it is affirmed, must have recreation. 
Be it so : but let it be of a healthful kind, and let the great 
aim of all who have any influence upon the public mind 
be to endeavor to implant a taste for the recreations 
afforded by cheap and wholesome literature, by quiet home 
enjoyments, and above all, by the sacred delights of true 
piety. 

In connection with this may be mentioned, as one par- 
ticular species of amusement, the taste for works of humor 
which has been produced in this country within the last 
ten years. There is no sin in mirth : man is made to enjoy 
it, and there is a time to laugh as well as to weep. And 
he must be a very misanthrope, a vampire which in the 
dark night of sorrow would suck the last drop of happi- 
ness from the human sufferer, who would forbid the smiles 
of gladness, and everything which ministers to the grati- 
fication of the laughter-loving heart. But then it is a dif- 
ferent thing from this, to wish to keep down this propen- 
sity within due bounds, and to remind men that they have 



196 MOTIVES TO 

other things to do in this world than to laugh ana oe merry. 
Dr. Vaughan says : — 

" We are not certain that some of our wise men do wisely, who 
are going abroad just now, with their cap and bells, in the hope of 
securing better attention to their lessons from the foolish. A 
fondness for grotesque jokes and everlasting caricature, bears as 
little resemblance to manly feeling, as the ecstacies of a young 
lady over the last new novel. Truth is a grave matter, and can 
owe little ultimately to the services of a buffoon. It loses half 
its dignity, if often presented in association with the ridiculous. 
Those who find their chief pleasure in broad farce, are rarely 
capable of a due exercise of earnest and reverential feeling. 
Your great wits do not spare their best friends, and your votaries 
of fun are generally persons prepared to sacrifice anything to 
their god. The mind which is wont to pay much homage to the 
laughers, too often forgets to pay a real homage to anything 
higher. In such a service the fine edge of moral feeling is al- 
most of necessity worn away. Not that we would send a man 
to the bow-string, because he has indulged a laugh. On the 
contrary, the man who cannot so indulge is not a man to our 
liking. There is something wrong in him, physically, mentally, 
and morally. All truly healthful men, in the spiritual, as well as 
in the natural sense, know how to enjoy their laugh. But your 
great laughers are generally slow workers. To make a merri- 
ment of folly is not to displace it by wisdom. Our proper busi- 
ness here is neither to grin nor to whine, but to be men. We 
say not that good may never be done by means of ridicule, but 
we are convinced that its general effect is such as we have ven- 
tured to indicate. It is an instrument, moreover, which has two 
edges, — use it, and you have no right to complain of ts being 
used."* 

These are wise and true sayings, as seasonable as they 
are important, and called for by the excessive taste for thia 

* British Quarterly Review. No. VI. p. 254. 



EARNESTNESS. 197 

species of composition which now prevails. If anything 
need be added in corroboration of these arguments, it is 
the fact stated by the justly lamented Dr. Arnold, that 
since the publication of periodical works of humor, he had 
perceived a visible declension of manly sentiment and 
serious though tfulness among the elder boys of his school. 
This is strong and decisive testimony as to the influence of 
a continued indulgence in broad farce. Is there not pre- 
cisely the same effect produced on the minds of our young 
men, especially when to this is added the moral tendency 
of the sentiments which are sometimes clothed in the garb 
of humor? Nothing can be more opposed to, or destruc- 
tive of, the serious spirit which true religion requires, than 
this constant and regular supply of materials for laughter. 
Nor does the mischief stop with the young and the unde- 
cided in religion, for it is infecting the professors of 
religion. It is hard to conceive how earnestness and 
spirituality can be maintained by those whose tables are 
covered, and whose leisure time is consumed, by these 
bewitching inspirations of the god of laughter. There is 
little hope of our arresting the evil, except we make it our 
great business to raise up a ministry who themselves shall 
not be carried away with the torrent ; who shall be grave, 
without being gloomy ; serious, without being melancholy ; 
and who, on the other hand, shall be cheerful without 
being frivolous, and who by their chastened mirthfulness 
shall be among the laughers, if not as total abstainers, yet 
as a moderate man among drunkards, and whose temper- 
ance shall check, or at any rate reprove the excesses of 
their companions. And then what a demand does this 
state of things prefer for the most intense earnestness in 
our Sabbath-day exercises, both as to prayers and to ser- 
mons. In this modorn taste we have a new obstacle to 



193 MOTIVES TO 

our usefulness, of a most formidable kind, and which can 
be subdued only by God's blessing upon our fidelity and 
zeal. Such men are wanted, as shall by their learning, 
science, and general knowledge, give weight to their opin- 
ions and influence to their advice, in their private intercourse 
with their flocks, and as shall, by their powerful and evan- 
gelical preaching, control this taste, and supplant it by a 
better. 

JSor must we omit to notice, and to notice with peculiar 
emphasis, the impetus that is now given to the human 
understanding through all its gradations, from the highest 
order of intellect down to the humblest classes of the 
laboring population. We have already alluded to this 
subject, but on account of its importance must here refer 
to it again, and a little more at length. As regards the 
laboring classes, education is advancing among them with 
rapid strides, as far at least as the counteracting tendency 
of the manufacturing system will allow. The poor must 
and will be instructed. The change of opinion on this 
subject that has come over a large portion of the commu- 
nity within the last quarter of a century, is indeed mar- 
vellous ; and instead of loud descants upon the dangers of 
an educated people, we now hear little else but as loud 
descants on the evils' of ignorance. This is a happy con- 
version, and its results will be auspicious ; not, however, 
without some temporary admixture of evil. It is really 
refreshing to read the programmes of educationary schemes 
which are drawn up for the culture of the working classes, 
by those who are promoting their mental improvement. 
But improvement in education is not confined, and cannot 
be confined, to the lower classes, but must be carried for- 
ward in equal proportion among those that are above them. 
The universal mind is awakened, and in motion onwards : 



EARNESTNESS. 199 

it is in a state of intense excitement and in epressible ac- 
tivity. Discoveries in science and inventions in art come 
so fast upon us, that we have scarcely recovered from the 
surprise produced by one, before another calls upon us to 
indulge in new wonder. Feats of science and art, especially 
in the department of engineering, are performed or pro- 
jected which look as if man in the pride of his intellect felt 
that nothing was impossible to him. As might be expected, 
all the knowledge thus obtained and accumulated is flow- 
ing by the thousand rills of the press and cheap books, 
through every department of society. The annual expend- 
iture of millions of pounds in cheap literature will show 
to what extent information on all subjects is reaching the 
working and other classes. Knowledge is the great idol 
around which the multitudes are gathering to pay their 
homage and record their vows. Is there anything in such 
a state of things at which the friends of religion should 
take alarm ? Quite the contrary. Christianity began her 
career, as every tyro in history well knows, in the most 
enlightened age, and amongst the most polished nations of 
antiquity ; and from that moment to the present, has never 
shrunk from the broadest daylight of learning and science, 
to skulk in the darkness and gloom of barbaric ignorance ; 
and its ministers should ever be foremost as the patrons of 
knowledge : but then it is evident that such a state of 
things requires an indomitable earnestness in the sacred 
duties of their calling to secure for religion its due pre- 
eminence amidst all the various claimants upon the public 
attention. Giving to general knowledge all the importance 
that is claimed for it, this, apart from religion, is not the 
sovereign remedy, the grand catholicon, which is to heal 
the disorders and restore the moral health of diseased 
humanity. There are some, and, indeed, not a few in our 



200 MOTIVES TO 

own country, as well as upon the continent of Europe, who 
dream, and all history proves it to be but a dream, of re- 
generating the world by the principles of reason and the 
aid of secular education. They think they can regulate 
society without religion, and renew the heart of man with- 
out God. We might ask them what philosophy did for 
such purposes in Egypt, its cradle, or in Greece, its tem- 
ple ? They forget that by the permission of Providence 
a grand experiment was made in the latter country, during 
the five centuries that preceded the Christian era, by the 
sages of the schools, to see what knowledge, apart from 
Divine revelation, could do to reform the moral world, and 
make it virtuous and happy. We venture to call for the 
result, and if the advocates of reason refuse to give it, an 
apostle shall supply the answer, — " The world by wisdom 
knew not God" It would seem as if, not satisfied with a 
single demonstration, these men were hazarding a second 
trial. Again with still greater advantages, and still greater 
confidence, they are flocking to the ordeal. Education is 
to be improved and extended ; the press is pouring forth 
its cheap literature ; science is broken down to such frag- 
ments and measured out in such drops, as even infant 
minds can receive and digest; and every appliance is to be 
furnished to give effect to the knowledge thus communi- 
cated ; lecturers on all subjects are travelling through the 
country, and are pouring forth streams of information in 
every direction ; while rational and invigorating amusements 
are to come in to aid the general improvement. By the 
advocates of the sufficiency of knowledge alone to improve 
the taste and raise the morals of the nation, the largest 
expectations are indulged of the regeneration of society, 
as the result of all these laborious efforts; but which, 
without a prophet's eye, we may predict, are doomed to 



EARNESTNESS. 201 

certain and bitter disappointment ; and may confidently 
anticipate that the result of the second experiment will bo 
the same as the first, and prove not only that the world 
by wisdom will never know God, but that nothing less 
than the foolishness of preaching will achieve its moral 
reformation. 

The state of our popular literature, as moulded to a 
considerable extent by these men, proves that such an 
experiment as that of teaching mankind to do without 
religion is going on. In much of what is read by the 
masses, there is an unconcealed hostility to Christianity. 
Infidelity of the boldest and most daring kind is associat- 
ing itself with a great many of the cheap publications of 
the day, with an energy and a success that would astound 
as well as alarm those who are not in the secret. But still 
there are many of the guides of the popular mind, perhaps 
most of them, who would not patronize this open assault 
upon the foundations of our faith — they go a more insid- 
ious, though scarcely less injurious way to work ; they 
are acting upon the principle that the best way to attack 
religion, and the least likely to shock prejudice and excite 
alarm, is to say nothing about it, to treat the whole subject 
as a negative, a nonentity, a thing to be forgotten ; with 
which it is no part of their business to concern themselves, 
and which may be left to float quietly down the stream to 
the gulf of oblivion. All that is thought necessary to 
provide for the million in the way of reading, is amusement 
and general knowledge : and, to a very great extent, the 
object of all this is accomplished. The laboring classes, 
with increasing knowledge, are more and more alienated 
from religion. The masses are not yet won to Christianity, 
but are sullenly standing aloof from it. 

In such a state of things, what kind of ministry is it 



202 MOTIVES TO 

that is wanted ? The answer is easy — men of earnestness ; 
of earnest intellects, earnest hearts, and earnest preaching ; 
men whose understanding shall command respect, whose 
manner shall conciliate affection, and whose ministrations 
shall attract by their beauty, and command by their power. 
The accessibility of the laboring classes gives us an advan- 
tage in approaching them. Neither prejudice nor fashion 
bars us out from them. We have neither to scale the walls 
of bigotry, nor to silence or evade the dogs of angry intol- 
erance : the door is open, and we may walk in. But we 
must be men of the age, men who understand it, who are, 
to say the least, up with it, and know how to avail ourselves 
of its advantages, and to surmount its difficulties. But I 
cannot do better here than refer to an admirable article in 
the Eclectic Review, on the Modern Pulpit, from which the 
following extract is given : — 

" What is good preaching ? Alas, how many answers would 
be given to this question ! And yet is not the true answer — the 
preaching by which souls are saved ? Then, the best preaching 
must be that by which the greatest number of souls are saved, In 
order to that end, however, men must be brought within the 
sphere of the pulpit ; and to bring the greatest number of men 
within that sphere is the design of Dr. Vaughan in his treatise, 
(on the Modern Pulpit,) and it is ours. In one word, what we 
specifically want in the modern pulpit is — adaptation. Now we 
have read a good deal in our time, not more than enough, of the 
necessity of adapting the efforts of the pulpit to the constitution 
of the human mind, to man's moral nature, to his actual condition 
as fallen, guilty, wretched, and exposed to future punishment. 
And not seldom have we read most seasonable injunctions, ad- 
dressed to our young ministers, on the personal adaptation of 
their discourses to the condition of individual men. All this we 
regard as of equal importance at all times, and in all conceivable 
circumstances. But, at present, our aim is to excite as much 



EARXISSTxN'ESS. 203 

attention as we can to the truth that along witli these general 
and fixed adaptations, there is required a constantly varying 
adaptation to the constantly progressive changes of society." 

The writer then goes on to explain what he means by 
this varying adaptation of the pulpit to the advancement 
in society, in reference to one portion of it — the working 
classes : — 

" Education is raising these great masses of the community 
into higher degrees of intellectual culture. New powers are at 
work. Incredible facilities are multiplied for diffusing knowledge, 
spreading opinions, and increasing the number of thinkers. Now 
in such an age, to say nothing of other views of society, it is ob- 
viously the duty of evangelical preachers to adapt themselves to 
the circumstances in which they are placed ; not, as this talented 
writer would be among the last to suggest, by withdrawing from 
the pulpit the great themes of the mediatory system, and substi- 
tuting for them philosophic truth, or a rationalized gospel, but by 
such a general line of conduct with reference to the circum- 
stances of a growingly enlightened age, and such a strain of 
preaching as shall lay hold of the public mind, and bring it under 
that doctrine which, and which only, is the power of God unto 
salvation. Let there be a just estimate formed, and which to be 
just cannot be a low one, of the mental powers of the common 
people ; a judicious and hearty sympathy with their real wants 
and reasonable wishes ; a studious consideration of the means by 
which the multitude shall be brought back to the sanctuaries of 
religion, which they have to a considerable extent deserted ; an 
assiduous endeavor to connect the functions of the pastor with 
the literary cultivation of the people. For these purposes let 
there be correct information of their state of intellect, their pre- 
vailing habits, their peculiar temptations, their literary tendencies 
and aspirations as to the books they read — let there be all this, but 
then let it be only as so much power put forth to bring these 
masses under the influence of the gospel. Oh, it were a noble 
triumph of the modern pulpit to see men of strong principle, and 



204 MOTIVES TO 

self -con trolling wisdom, gathering round them the most boisterous 
elements of our social atmosphere, conducting the lightnings with 
whicla its darkest thunder-clouds are charged, and showing to the 
nation they have saved, that the preaching of the cross is still the 
' power of God. 5 " 

Of course, such an enterprise of home-evangelization will 
require that our ministers shall be men of action* Adap- 
tation, then, there may be, and should be, in the sermons 
and the general habits of the ministry, to the age in which 
they live, in the way of laying hold of public attention, 
widening the sphere of their action, and adding to their 
influence as preachers of the cross. Stronger intelligence, 
profounder thinking, more logical argumentation, more 
varied illustration, more chastened composition, more re- 
fined sentiment, more genuine, yet Christian, and unobtru- 
sive philosophy, may be required in one age than another, 
and in this than in some preceding ages ; but then all this 
must be in harmony with the simplicity that is in Christ, 
and only so much added to the height or the ornaments of 

* Connected with my own congregation is an Institution, partly 
religious and partly literary, for the benefit of the young men and 
elder boys of all classes, but chiefly of the working classes, which has- 
existed for more than a quarter of a century, which has a library of 
nearly 1*200 volumes, and to the members of which lectures on mis 
ccllaneous subjects are periodically delivered. As a proof of the ad 
vantages it has conferred, as well as of the taste of the age, two or 
our members, both of them formerly in our Sunday school, took a» 
excursion last summer, through France, up the Mediterranean to 
Athens, from thence through Southern Greece, back to Sicily, Naples, 
Pompeii, Rome, and Italy ; and on their return delivered in three lec- 
tures an account of their travels, that would bear no distant compari- 
son with some other accounts that have been given to the public from 
the press. They were able to appreciate, and did appreciate with en- 
thusiasm, the remains of antiquity in Greece and Rome, as well as the 
exhibitions of modern times. 



EARNESTNESS. 205 

the pedestal which is to exalt the Saviour, and attract a per- 
ishing world to the fountain of life. 

Having referred to the state of public opinion and feeling 
with reference to religion among the lower classes, it may 
not be amiss to glance at the higher and more educated 
portions of the community. Many of these are moving on 
two lines, or in a stream that divides into two channels, and 
flows in two opposite directions — the devout going off to 
Puseyism, and a large part of the rest to a philosophical 
infidelity. A loose, unsystematized theism is adopted by 
many of our men of letters, in some cases a new edition of 
the opinion of our English deists of the last century, and 
in others, and a still more numerous class, bearing a strong 
affinity to the pantheistic or mystic spirit of the German 
philosophy. Of the disposition of modem science, in the 
persons of some of its more illustrious votaries, to retire 
from revealed religion as if ashamed to be seen in its com- 
pany, we have an affecting instance in the great octogena- 
rian naturalist of Prussia. It is indeed a melancholy spec- 
tacle, to witness such a man as Humboldt — whose eye has 
seen so much of the visible universe, and whose pen has 
recorded so ably the researches of his vast genius ; whose 
intellect seemed formed by the Creator, not only to study 
his works, but to proclaim his glories — send forth such a 
work as " Kosmos," and in that work declare it was no part 
of his business to trace the wonders he describes to their 
still more wondrous Author ! How deeply painful to see 
this high priest of nature officiating with such zeal and de- 
votion at the shrine of matter, and yet never throwing one 
grain of incense on the altar of the Infinite Mind which 
made the worlds. Yet this is only a specimen of other 
similar cases. Alas, alas ! that such a mind should be so 
warped by the modes of thinking prevalent among his 



200 MOTIVES TO 

countrymen, and should have sent forth perhaps his last 
gift to the lovers of science, in which the Hegelian panthe- 
ism is too obviously interwoven. 

With such a view of the state and tendency of the edu- 
cated mind in this acre, we see an additional argument for 
an earnest, and at the same time intelligent and educated 
ministry. We shall want men, and we are not without 
them already, who can enter the lists and do battle with 
the seductive and dangerous forms of error, that have 
done such mischief on the continent of Europe, and are 
likely, without great vigilance and stout resistance, to re- 
peat the mischief here also. The spirit of mental philoso- 
phy which was called up by Locke, and has since been 
sustained in different schools by Reid and Kant, and 
those who have descended from them, is at the present 
moment widely diffusing itself through the English and 
American mind. Education will no longer be confined to 
literature and natural science. A disposition and deter- 
mination are formed to explore the world of mind, as well 
as that of matter, and to give to subjective studies a place, 
and that a very high one, among the objective ones. Psy- 
chology is now, and will be still more so, the favorite pur- 
suit of great multitudes of reflective intellects. The mind 
of Germany is operating with power and success upon the 
mind of England, to an extent which is surprising, and, in 
some views of the case, alarming. It is, one should think, 
impossible to trace the progress of Transcendentalism from 
the time of Kant to that of Hegel, and to see how, as it 
diverged more and more widely from the metaphysics of 
our land, it has associated itself with Rationalism in the- 
ology, and led on to Pantheism in philosophy, without 
some apprehension for the result of its introduction to this 
country. Perhaps the practical character of the English 



EARNESTNESS. 207 

understanding will be one of our safeguards against a sys- 
tem which to the great multitude must ever remain a mere 
scientific speculation. It may, however, be feared that 
some of our young ministers, and our students in theology, 
especially those of speculative habits, captivated by the 
daring boldness, the intellectual vigor, and the theoretic 
attractions of the great German philosophers, may too ad- 
venturously launch forth on this dangerous ocean, and make 
shipwreck of their doctrinal simplicity and practical use- 
fulness. Let them be assured that neither the transcen- 
dentalism of Kant, nor the eclecticism of Cousin, are safe 
guides for men who would be useful in saving souls. The 
warning voice has already been lifted up in high places on 
the other side of the Atlantic, where German philosophy 
was likely at one time to be received with avidity, and 
there will not be wanting voices to utter words of warning 
in this country also. It would not only be useless, but 
unwise to set out this, or any other system of philosophy, 
as the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which we are 
forbidden by the command of God, and the flaming sword 
of the cherubim, to approach : this, as well as every other 
object of human inquiry, may be studied, and by a cau- 
tious and discriminating mind, may of course be studied 
with advantage. We would by no means contend that 
there is nothing in the industry of German investigation, 
tfa its method of analysis, in its subjective taste, or even in 
the systems which are the fruits of its researches, which 
may not be borrowed with advantage by ourselves : but 
against that willing and entire surrender of their intellects 
to a school, the masters of which have advanced from one 
degree of error to another, till they have left us no gospel 
but a fable, and no God but nature, which some are begin* 



208 MOTIVES TO 

ning to manifest in this land, we must raise an emphatic 
and protesting vcdce. 

A work has lately made its appearance, likely to be ex- 
tensively circulated among those who have any taste for 
philosophical studies, or any wish to become acquainted 
with German literature ; a work which cannot fail to com- 
mand attention, and will certainly secure for its accom- 
plished author the admiration and respect of his numerous 
readers — I mean the " History of Modern Philosophy, " 
by the Rev. J. D. Morell. It is impossible to deny to 
this gentleman the fidelity of the historian, the impartiality 
and the candor of the true philosopher, and at the same 
time the excellence of a very able writer. It is on some 
accounts a happy circumstance that such a subject has 
fallen into such hands, since Mr. Morell's attachment to 
evangelical truth, united with his intimate acquaintance 
with continental literature, will qualify him, we trust, to be 
a safe pilot for the English mind through the perilous seas 
he has undertaken to navigate. It may be hoped that his 
own attachment to the subjective system of philosophy 
will not lead his ardent readers and admirers to go further 
in that direction than his own discriminating and well-bal- 
anced mind would wish or approv r e ; and we are quite sure 
that he would join with many who are perhaps more appre- 
hensive than he is of the influence of German philosophy, 
in the opinion that no surer way could our young ministers 
take to hinder their usefulness than to allow such studies to 
obscure the simplicity of their matter, or to deaden the 
energy of their manner, as preachers of the gospel, and that 
he would also most emphatically say, " Beware, lest any 
man spoil you (as preachers) through philosophy and vain 
deceit." 



EARNESTNESS. 209 

From a very able and complimentary critique on Mr. 
Morell's work, contained in the twelfth number of the 
" North British Review," obviously by Dr. Chalmers, the 
following appropriate passage may with advantage be in- 
troduced here : speaking of Carlyle, the reviewer says : — 

" They are not creeds, but men, who are the objects of his 
idolatry, which, under the name of hero-worship, he renders alike 
to those of most opposite opinions — as to Luther, and Knox, and 
Cromwell, on the one hand, so with equal veneration to the lofty 
poets and transcendentalists of Germany, upon the other. He is 
a lover of earnestness, more than a lover of truth : and it would 
not be our counteractive at least, to urge that he should be a 
lover of truth, more than a lover of earnestness. We should 
rather say that both are best, and would our island only not be 
frightened from its propriety by the high-sounding philosophy of 
the continent — neither overborne by its pretensions, nor overawed 
by its cabalistic nomenclature — would our savans and theologians 
but keep unmoved on the ground of common sense, and by their 
paramount demand for evidence at every step, lay resolute arrest 
on the pruriencies of wanton speculation — then, while they re- 
jected all that was unsubstantial and unsound in the dogmata 
of the transcendental school, it were well that they imported the 
earnest and lofty enthusiasm of its disciples into the phlegmatic 
universities, and no less phlegmatic churches, of our land. We 
do not need to take down the framework of our existing ortho- 
doxy, whether in theology or in science. All that we require is 
that it shall become an animated framework, by the breath of a 
new life being infused into it. Ours has been most truly de- 
nounced as an age of formalism ; but to mend this, we do not 
need to exchange our formulas, only to quicken them ; nor to 
quit the ground of our common sense for baseless speculations ; 
nor to substitute the Divine Idea of Fichte for a personal and 
living God ; nor to adopt for our Saviour a mere embodied and 
allegorized perfection, and give up the actual and historical 
Jesus Christ of the New T3stament ; nor, finally, to go in pest 

18* 



210 MOTIVES TO 

of a chimerical on .c ogy in upper regions far out of mortal ken, 
and for visions of merest fancy there, to renounce either the cer- 
tainties of our own palpable and peopled world, or the truths 
which He who dwelleth in the heavens brought down from 
heaven, because no man can ascend into heaven, or tell the mys- 
teries and glories of a place which he never entered. What we 
w T ant is, that the very system of doctrine which we now have, 
shall come to us not in word only, but in power. As things stand 
at present, our creeds and confessions have become effete, and 
the Bible a dead letter ; and that orthodoxy which was at one 
time the glory, by withering into the inert and lifeless, is now 
the shame and the reproach of all our churches. If there have 
been the revival of a more spiritual philosophy in France, or else- 
where, it might well humble us ; but this is not exactly the quar- 
ter from which we should expect our revival to come. Prayer 
could bring it down from above ; and it is only thus, that all 
which is good in Puritanism — its earnestness without its extrava- 
gance ; its faith, without its contempt for philosophy ; its high 
and heavenly-mi ndedness, without the baser admixture of its 
worldly politics and passions — it is only thus the Augustan age 
of Christianity in England, an age which Mr. Carlyle has 
done so much to vindicate and bring to light, will again come 
back, to reform our State and bless our families." 

From this article it is perfectly evident that if England 
should have a tendency to go wrong, Scotland will do 
something to put us right, and that the followers, but im- 
proved ones, of Reid, will do much to keep the descend- 
ants of Kant in check, and hold the balance even 
between the Scotch and German philosophies. Surely 
nothing more need be said to show and prove what kind 
of men we want for such an age, and to indicate that for 
times of such excitement we must have men of strong 
intelligence, simple faith, and entire devotedness. It is, in 
every view we can take of it, an earnest age, and earnest 
men alone can at such a time do anything anywhere, and 



EARNESTNESS. 211 

least of all in the pulpit. Events, with trumpet-call, sum- 
mon us to our post, with every faculty awake, and every 
energy engaged. Amidst the din of business, of politics, 
of science, and of fashion ; amidst the jests of laughers, the 
eloquence of orators, and the clamor of parties, the voice 
of the preacher will not be heard, unless he speak loudly, 
nor listened to unless he speak earnestly : we shall gain no 
heed for our holy religion, unless we put forth all our 
strength ; it will be pushed aside, overborne, trampled 
down in the jostling crowd, if we do not put forth our 
mightiest energies to bear it up, and to make way for 
it through the strife and the theory of abounding secu- 
larises. 

Let us not deceive ourselves by substituting anything 
else for this. It may be all very well and proper in its 
place to keep pace with the times in which we live, as re- 
gards other matters ; in classical, mathematical, and philo- 
sophical literature, in academic degrees, in tasteful architec- 
ture ; but these things, in the absence of a living power of 
intense devotedness, will be but as the flowers which shed 
their fragrance upon our grave, or as the sculpture which 
decorates our tomb. 

IV. We may next contemplate the earnestness displayed 
by some other bodies, with which, it may be truly said, we 
have to contend. 

And first of all, let us look at the activity of the Church 
of Rome. What a change has of late years come over 
that wonderful and dreadful system, so far as its external 
circumstances are concerned. Many are disposed to think 
lightly of its present condition, efforts, prospects, and 
hopes ; and it will be acknowledged it is unwise and im- 
politic for Protestants to lend their aid in magnifying the 
power, and swelling the pride and expectations of the Mau 



212 MOTIVES TO 

of Sin. But then it is no less unwise and impolitic, on the 
other hand, to miscalculate his forces, to shut our eyes on 
his efforts, and to deny his victories. What we need is 
just so much of alarm as shall rouse us to action, without 
producing panic ; enough of fear to lead us to buckle on 
our armor, and yet not so much as to paralyze our ener- 
gy. Look at the present condition and prospects of Popery, 
as compared with what they were soon after the French 
Revolution. Weakened by the withering scorn of an infi- 
del philosophy, to which its own corruption had given rise, 
it was ill-prepared to sustain the shock of that awful out- 
break of human passion, and it fell an apparently lifeless 
corpse before it. The Gallican Church was subverted, its 
priests were banished, its property confiscated, its places 
of worship closed. A French army was in possession of 
Rome, and the Pope was a prisoner in France, while his 
adherents were trembling and dispersed in all parts of the 
world. The opponents of Romanism exulted in the con- 
fidence that its days were numbered and its end was come. 
They exulted too soon. That lifeless corpse which lay 
prostrate in Europe, has since then shown signs of return- 
ing animation — its wounds have been healed — it has risen 
from the earth — and, recovering its full health, is going 
forth at this time with giant strength to contend with Prot- 
estantism for the mastery of the world. Popery has gained 
political power in England. It is renewing its old fight in 
France for the education of the people — its chapels, its 
priests, its bishops, its monks, its missions, are everywhere 
multiplying — its ancient craft and cruelty are again called 
into activity, as Tahiti can witness — it is drawing hundreds, 
I fear, if we include both clergy and laity, of influential 
persons from the Church of England, and tainting with its 
spirit hundreds more who remain behind to diffuse the 



EARNESTNESS. 213 

corruption still more widely — it has done much to blot 
from the memory of statesmen its past history, and to hide 
from their eyes its hideous form — and with an ardor kind- 
ling to an intense flame, and a hope flushed into a stronger 
confidence by these victories, it is still going on from con- 
quering to conquer. There are, it is true, for Rome fear- 
ful and appalling portents to be set off against these bright 
signs : there is the confiscation of ecclesiastical property 
and the dissolution of the monasteries in Spain — the rapid 
defection going on in Germany, under Ronge and Czerski 
— the conversion of whole congregations and parishes in 
the south of France to Protestantism — the rising spirit ol 
free inquiry even in Italy — with the growth of knowledge 
and the advance of education everywhere. From all this 
it is evident that the great battle of the Reformation is to 
be fought over again, and we are in the field of action, 
where the forces are mustered and the conflict is going on; 
and we are unworthy of our position and our occupation 
if we do not give our energies, the best and the noblest, to 
the cause. Let us take pattern from our foes, and imi- 
tate their intensity of action. They are in earnest if we 
are not. Were it possible for us to see a perfect disclosure, 
in one bird's-eye view, of all that is going on in the Vati- 
can, that most astounding instance of centralization out of 
the bottomless pit ; could we see the gigantic intellects 
that are planning, and the burning hearts that are feeding 
the fire of their zeal, and the busy hands that are working 
in that focus of all that is darin£ in design and mischievous 
in effect to the world's intellectual and spiritual welfare, we 
should feel that we are safe from the tyranny of that auda- 
cious system, only under the vigilance of an Omniscient 
eye, and the protection of an Omnipotent arm. But that 
help and that vigilance a*3 not to be looked for by the 



214 MOTIVES TO 

supine and lukewarm, and can be expected only in the way 
of zealous activity and confiding prayer. To whom chiefly 
should Protestantism look for the instrumentality necessary 
for its defence, but to its ministers ? Let them, in answer 
to the call which events are making upon their energies, 
prepare themselves by study, by deep devotion, and by 
intense action, to grapple with this ancient foe of spiritual 
Christianity. 

But this is not the only instance of earnestness offered 
J) us, which we should contemplate, and from which we 
should deduce a stimulus to our own activity. We have 
far more to fear from England than from Italy ; from Ox- 
ford than from Rome. I do not now allude merely to the 
Tractarian party ; we have little to fear from them, com- 
pared with the other section of the Established Church — 
the evangelical clergy. The Church of England is in ear- 
nest. Many of us can recollect the time when it was not 
so. A pervading secularity characterized her clergy ; a 
drowsy indifference her people : if the former got their 
tithes, and ate, drank, and were merry, and the latter got 
christening, confirmation, and the sacrament when they 
died, it was all they cared for. The only thing that moved 
either of them to a pang of zeal was the coming of the 
Methodists into the parish, and when these were mobbed 
away, they relapsed again into their former apathy. Ex- 
ceptions there were — bright and blessed ones — but they 
were only exceptions. Thank God, it is not so now. A 
vivifying wind has swept over the valley of dry bones, and 
an army not only of living, but of life-giving men has 
sprung up. Venn, Berridge, and Romaine ; Newton, 
Cecil and Simeon have lived and awakened a new spirit 
in the church to which they belonged. Look at that, 
church as she is now to be seen, full of energy and ear* 



EARNESTNESS. 215 

nestness : divided, it is true, into parties as to theological 
opinion, to a considerable extent Romanized in her spirit, 
and aggressive in her designs ; but instinct with life, and a 
great deal of it life of the best kind. Even the orthodox 
and the Puseyite clergy are all now active, preaching, cat- 
echising, visiting the sick, instituting and superintending 
schools. The day is happily gone by when the taunt of 
fox-hunting, play-going, ball-frequenting parsons could be 
with justice thrown at the clergy of the State church : 
they are now no longer to be found in those scenes of folly 
and vanity, but at the bed-side of the sick man, or in the 
cottage of the poor one. We must rejoice in their labors 
and in their success, except when their object and their 
aim are to crush Dissenters. There are very many among 
them of the true apostolic succession in doctrine, spirit, and 
devotedness ; many whose piety and zeal we should do 
well to emulate ; many with whom it is among the felicities 
of my life to be united in the bonds of private friendship, 
and public co-operation. Sincerely and cordially attached 
to their church, they are laboring, in season and out of 
season, to promote its interests. Who can blame them ? 
Instead of this, let us imitate them. For zeal and devoted- 
ness they are worthy of it. I know their labors, and am 
astonished at them. Think of a clergyman, and multitudes 
of such there are, who, beside his other labors, spends 
four or five hours every day in going from house to house, 
visiting the sick, instructing the ignorant, comforting the 
distressed. Can we wonder that such men should lay 
hold on the public mind ? Is it not in the natural course 
of things that it should be so ? It is admitted that the 
clergyman of a parish has advantages for this species of 
ministerial occupation which we have not ; he considers all 
the people within certain topographical limits as belonging 



216 MOTIVES TO 

to him, as being, in fact, his cure ; whik, on the other hand, 
most if not all of these persons, except such as by profes- 
sion really belong to other denominations, look upon him 
in the light of their minister. This ever-active assiduity, 
in addition to the Sabbath-day exercises, is admonitory to 
us. Can we see this new sight, the whole Church estab- 
lishment, from the Archbishop of Canterbury down to the 
curate of the smallest village, with all their modern and 
comprehensive agency of Pastoral Aid Societies, Ladies' 
District Visiting Societies, Scripture Readers, Church 01 
England Tract Societies, and other means of influence and 
power, in busy commotion, dotting the land all over with 
churches and schools, and thus, hy all these efforts, labor- 
ing to occupy so entirely the nation as to leave no room 
for, and to prove there is no need of, any other body oi 
Christians — can we see all this constantly before our eyes, 
and not see the need of an earnest ministry, not only to 
maintain our ground, but to advance ? Not that I mean 
to assert that the evangelical clergy would altogether wish 
to push us off the ground. T$o, I believe there are many 
who unfeignedly rejoice in the existence, operations, and 
success, both of the Methodists and Dissenters, and who 
would consider it a deep calamity for the nation, if they 
were arrested in their career of evangelical ministration to- 
morrow. The spirit of the Evangelical Alliance is diffus- 
ing itself abroad. Sectarianism is, we hope, beginning to 
wither at the root, and Christian charity is grappling with 
the demon of bigotry. But still we are at present not 
prepared for the fusion and amalgamation of all parties 
into one, and till then we may learn from each other ; and 
with the most entire good will towards my brethren in the 
Church of England, without envy or jealousy, I call upon 
my other brethren within my own denomination to imitate 



EARNESTNESS. 217 

the zeal of which they are the witnesses among the clergy 
of the Establishment. I am a Dissenter from conviction 
as well as by education, and know not the lure which would 
induce me, or the suffering which would terrify me, to 
abandon my principles. I believe, as I ever have believed, 
since I reflected upon the subject, that the establishment 
of religion by the enactments of secular legislation has no 
sanction from the New Testament, is a corruption of Chris- 
tianity, and injurious to its spirit ; and I believe the time 
will come when the same views will be entertained by all 
the genuine followers of Christ : hence I am, and ought 
to be, anxious, while I cultivate a spirit of brotherly love 
towards those who differ from me, to uphold, though with- 
out wrath, malice, or any uncharitableness, the denomina- 
tion by which my conscientious opinions are embodied and 
expressed. Dissenters of England, and especially Dissent- 
ing ministers, I say therefore unto you, be in earnest ; first 
of all and chief of all in attachment to the doctrines of 
Evangelism, to the creed of Protestantism, to the great 
principles which God has employed in every age and coun- 
try where true religion has had existence, to vitalize a dead, 
and purify a corrupt world. Be it your prayer, your en- 
deavor, your hallowed ambition, to possess a ministry of 
competent learning, and especially of soundly evangelical 
sentiment ; a ministry which, as regards their matter and 
manner, shall be the power of God to the salvation of 
souls ; a ministry which, m the simplicity of their discourses, 
and the intensity of their zeal, the fervor of their piety, and 
the all-comprehending extent of their labors, shall vie with 
the best specimens of the clergy of the church of England 
There is earnestness there, and if we would not be swal- 
lowed up in the rising tide and increasing torrent of their 
zeal, let us meet it with a corresponding intensity. Let 

19 



218 MOTIVES TO 

each minister, in his :wn separate and individual sphere of 
action, set himself to work and put forth all his energies 
without waiting for combination with others. Not that I 
speak against combination. We have far too little of it, 
and this is our weakness. In polity we are too independent, 
and should be vastly improved as regards our internal con- 
dition and our external influence, if we were more compact. 
But as to ministerial earnestness we need not wait for oth- 
ers : each man can do what he wills, and may do much, 
though no other man do any thing. Ministerial activity, 
like Christian piety, is a matter of individual obligation, 
and no one is so dependent upon his neighbors as that he 
needs to halt till they are ready to march with him. 

Nor is it necessary, nor proper, advocate though I be for 
the Evangelical Alliance, that we should be silent as to our 
views of the spirituality of Christ's kingdom. As we are 
not to sacrifice love for truth, so neither are we to sacrifice 
truth for love nor to throw away a smaller diamond of 
truth for a larger one. All truth must be held, as well as 
all love. I differ from some of our brethren in my views 
of certain confederations for the maintenance and spread of 
our Nonconformity, because I believe that whatever good 
they may do in one way, they do more harm in another; 
but I do not differ from them in my conviction that our 
principles, as a :*art of the New Testament, ought to be 
taught, and to be taught with earnestness too. If true, 
they must be important, and if important at all, very im- 
portant : subordinate I know, immeasurably so, to the 
doctrines whereby men are saved ; but still of consequence. 
Provided the gross misrepresentation, the exaggerated 
statement, the studied caricature, the uncharitable imputa- 
tion, the withering sarcasm, the bitter irony, and the 
malevolent ridicule be expunged from controversy, and 



EARNESTNESS. 219 

there be as much of the delicacy of love, as there is of the 
firmness of truth, there can be no harm, tut must be much 
good, not only in stating our own opinions, but in answer- 
ing those who differ from us. All systems of church polity 
derive their value and importance from their subserviency 
to the cause of Evangelism. Church of Eno-landism or 
Dissent, apart from this, is but as the pole without the 
healing serpent which it was erected to exhibit ; and to be 
zealous about either except as viewed in reference to the 
truth as it is in Jesus, is but like contending about the 
wood of the cross, to the neglect of the Saviour who was 
crucified upon it. 

How, then, are we to meet that abounding zeal which 
we ourselves perhaps have been in no small degree the 
occasion of awakening, but by a corresponding vigor of 
action? We cannot advance, nay, we cannot keep our 
ground without it. We have to contend against an energy 
which is astounding and all but overwhelming ; and if this 
cannot move us to earnestness, nothing will. 

V. This state of mind and action is within the reach of 
every minister of Christ. 

Some men, from a natural physical energy of character, 
may be more prone to, and better qualified for, this fervid 
and devoted zeal than some others. They are of a more 
mercurial temperament than their phlegmatic brethren who 
creep while the others fly and who require more stimulus 
to rouse them into activity than is necessary to keep the 
rest at the full speed of their progress. This is constitu- 
tional to a very considerable extent ; but it is, after all, 
more of a moral than a natural inability in many ; and the 
sinners whom they address and call to repentance, and 
to whom they declare that the only hindrance they have 
to true religion is an impotence of will, are just as excus* 



220 MOTIVES TO 

able for their want of penitence and faith as any minister 
under heaven is for a want of earnestness. He may never 
be able to be a scholar, or a philosopher, or a mathema- 
tician, though he may acquire more of all these attainments 
than he supposes is within his reach, if he will but give 
himself to early-rising, make a good apportionment of his 
time, and adopt a well-arranged plan of study. His situ- 
ation and engagements may be such, however, that he 
may not hope to rise to eminence in these things ; but 
nothing forbids his activity, zeal, and entire devotedness to 
the great work of preaching the gospel and caring for 
men's souls. He may not be a consummate orator, for he 
has not voice for this ; but he may, if he please, use what 
voice he has with good effect : he may not have the ability 
for finished composition ; but he can, if he give himself 
time and labor, produce sermons full of spiritual power: 
he may not be able to attract around him the rich, the lit- 
erary, or the great ; but he can interest the poor, and 
engage the children of the Sunday School, and perhaps 
their parents : he may not have ten talents, but he need 
not wrap up his one in a napkin and bury it in the earth. 
Every man has one talent at least, with which he can 
busily trade and acquire profit for his employer, and reward 
for himself. If the pride of some men over-estimate the 
number of their talents, the modesty, or in some cases the 
indolence of others, leads them to make too low a calcula- 
tion of theirs. There is a source of latent energy in most 
men, which they have been so far from exhausting that 
they have scarcely touched it ; they have in many cases to 
break up a virgin soil. I knew a minister of Christ, and 
loved him well, who was in a situation where he had done 
little, and feared he never should do more. Everything 
was dull around him, and he was dull with it. It pleased 



EARNESTNESS. 221 

God to remove him to a new situation, and then lie became 
a new man. He revived from his torpor, and everything 
revived around him. An activity and energy were now 
evinced which surprised himself and those who knew him. 
He formed a new congregation, instituted a variety of re- 
ligious organizations of a useful kind, and was one of the 
most earnest men I knew. All this energy was not a new 
creation, but a resurrection. So it might be with many more. 
There are the principles of activity within them which are 
only waiting for the influence of circumstances, or the 
power of will, to give them life, motion, and vigor. Away 
then with the excuses of indolence, the fears of timidity, 
the objections of modesty, and the opiates of conscience ; 
for it is these, and not impossibilities, which prevent any 
man from being zealously affected in a good thing. Every 
minister can be an earnest man if he so wills ; and he is so 
when anything in which he has a deep interest is at stake. 
Let his house be on fire, or his health and life be in danger, 
or his wife or child be in peril, or some means of greatly 
augmenting his property be thrown in his way, and what 
an intensity of emotion and a vehemence of action will be 
exerted and put in motion ! and there needs but the might 
and pressure of the interests of immortal souls upon 
his conscience ; there needs but a heart constrained by the 
love of Christ so as to be borne away by the force and im- 
petuosity of this hallowed passion ; there needs but a long- 
ing desire to be wise in winning men to Jesus ; there needs, 
in fine, but a heart fully set in him to accomplish the ends 
and objects of his office, to possess that high and noble 
quality of soul which it is the object of this work to rec- 
ommend. There are the same constitutional varieties in 
tradesmen as are visible in ministers, and yet we never 
hearken to the former when, in justification of their failure 



222 MOTIVES TO 

for want of energy, they tell us they have no physical ca- 
pacity for, or tendency to, activity. Our reply to them H, 
that what is deficient in them by nature, must be made 
up by reason and diligence. We say the same to the 
preacher of the gospel, and while by this representation 
we would constrain his conscience by a sense of obligation, 
we would interest his heart by awakening hope. He may 
never be able, with his measure of talent, to reach the suc- 
cess of some more gifted and more favored brethren ; but 
he may have a measure of his own, far more than enough ' 
to recompense any labor he may bestow to obtain some 
success ; and instead therefore of spending his time in en- 
vying others, or sitting down in despair to do nothing, 
because he cannot do as much as they, let him rise up, and 
have the blessed consciousness and reward that he has 
done what he could. 

You who may read these pages can possess and exhibit 
real earnestness ; all its delightful excitement, all its blessed 
results, all its eternal consequences, are within your reach. 
There is no lion in the street, except w^hat your own imag- 
ination sees there, and your own sloth has placed there. 
Make the effort, it is worth the making : try, you can but 
fail, and it is better to fail than not to make the attempt. 
Think what a result may issue from a new devotedness. 
We have never yet any of us rightly estimated the im- 
mense importance and momentous consequences of our 
work. How can we ? They are eternal, and who can 
duly estimate eternity ? Do we believe what we preach, 
that the conversion of a soul is of more consequence than 
the creation of a world ? Is this sober truth, or mere 
rhetoric ? Is this fact, or the mere garniture of a sermon ; 
only a dash of eloquence, an artifice of our oratory ? If 
true, and we know it is so, how momentous ! A soul ! 



EARNESTNESS. 223 

weigh it in tJie balance of the sanctuary, and settle its 
worth : appraise its value. Salvation ! wondrous word, and 
more wondrous thing. One word only, but containing 
millions of ideas ; uttered in a moment, but requiring ever- 
lasting ages, and all the amplitude of heaven, for the un- 
folding of its meaning. Archbishop Williams, who was 
also Lord Keeper in the time of Charles the First, once utter- 
ed this memorable speech : "I have passed through many 
places of honor and trust both in Church and State, more 
than any one of my order for seventy years before. But 
were I assured that by my preaching I had converted one 
soul to God, I should therein take more comfort than in 
all the honors and offices that have ever been bestowed 
upon me." What a confession from an archbishop, that 
he did not know he had been the instrument of converting 
a single soul to God ; what an impressive importance does 
the confession stamp upon the work of saving souls ; and 
what a stimulus should it supply to us who are engaged in 
this divine employment ! 

How vain and worthless a thing is the popular applause, 
which some receive for eloquence, compared with the 
proofs of usefulness in the conversion of immortal souls ! 
What are the flatteries of the foolish, or even the eulo- 
giums of the wise ; what the honeyed compliments, or the 
golden opinions of the most distinguished circle of admir- 
ers, weighed against the testimony of one redeemed sinner 
that we have been the instrument of saving him from death, 
but as the small dust in the balance ! How have some 
men, pre-eminent for their intellectual power and accus- 
tomed to fascinate the spell-bound multitude by the power 
of their eloquence, yearned, amidst all their popularity, for 
some more substantial, satisfying, and abiding reward of 
their labor, than that admiration of their talents which 



224 MOTIVES TO 

they were accustomed to receive. It may be they were 
not unsusceptible to the emotions of vanity, nor ungrati- 
fied by the expressions of applause, at the time ; but when 
they found that this was all the result of their labors, they 
sickened of the incense and the honey, and exclaimed in 
the bitterness of disappointment, and the anguish of self- 
reproach, " Is this all my reward ? Oh, where are the 
souls I have converted from the error of their ways?" 
We have a striking proof of this in the late Dr. McAll, 
whom it was my privilege to call my friend. It was im- 
possible for this extraordinary man to be ignorant either of 
his great powers, of the estimate in which they were held, 
or the effect they produced on others by his pulpit exer- 
cises. ISTor was he by any means unsusceptible of the in- 
fluence of applause. But how empty did this appear to 
him as compared with the abiding results of real useful- 
ness ; which, if he had not enjoyed in such large meas- 
ures as some others, it was not for want of any anxiety to 
obtain it. " Deeply affected was he often," says Dr. Leif- 
child, " by the fear of not being useful iix his ministry." 
" I have admiration enough," he would say, " but I want 
to see conversion and edification." He spoke of some 
other neighboring ministers whose churches, he said, re- 
sembled a garden which the Lord had blessed, or whose 
spots of verdure were more vivid than his own ; but 
added that his emotions in making the comparison, partook 
of a character that absorbed or overwhelmed sorrow for 
himself. I remember on one occasion, after a brilliant 
speech from himself, he listened to a much plainer and less 
oratorical brother, whose address, however, seemed much 
more penetrating on the minds of the audience, and pro- 
duced an appearance of being deeply affected on their 
countenances. At that moment the speaker, hearing a 



EARNESTNESS. 225 

loud sobbing behind him, turned round ; it was McAll. 
"Ah," said he, afterwards, "that effect, in such a legiti- 
mate way, I would give the world to be able to produce." 
Though the desire thus ardently breathed was elicited on 
the platform, it extended to every description of ministe- 
rial address. " Oh," said lie to Mr. Griffin, again and 
again, " I care nothing w T hat the people may think or say 
of my abilities, if I may but be useful to souls !" and once, 
with a kind of swelling indignation, " God knows, I do not 
want their applause — I want their salvation." This is 
eminently instructive and impressive, and is one of the 
most convincing instances which the history of the pulpi 4- 
can furnish of the worthlessness of almost everything else 
as an object of ministerial pursuit, and as the reward of 
ministerial labor, compared with the salvation of immortal 
souls. This was not the confession and the lamentation of 
one whose envy led him to depreciate the value of that 
which he had no hope of obtaining, but of one w T ho was 
the admiration of every circle into which he entered, and 
whose surprising talents commanded the plaudits of all 
who heard him. How much of the power of that vast 
intellect, and that splendid eloquence, and of the admira- 
tion and eulogium which they drew upon him, would Dr. 
McAll have given up for a portion of that usefulness, which 
he saw was granted to the humbler but more effective tal- 
ents of some of his far less gifted brethren. Let the men 
who are but too apt to envy such displays of genius, and 
who, when they see the spell-bound multitude listening in. 
breathless silence, or dispersing in audible applause, fret 
because they cannot do so with their enchantments, study 
the scene before us : let them follow Dr. McAll home 
from the crowded, fascinated, admiring congregation, leav- 
ing behind him the atmosphere perfumed and vocal with 

10* 



226 MOTIVES TO 

applause, to commune with God and Lis own heart in his 
closet, and there hear him exclaiming with a burst of agony, 
"Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom has 
thine arm been revealed ?" Let them mark all this, and 
learn that in the estimation of the most gifted minds, there 
is no object of pursuit so sublime, nor any reward for 
ministerial labor so rich, as the salvation of immortal souls 

VI. We may next direct our attention to the fact that 
earnestness has usually been successful in the accomplishment 
of its object, and that little has ever been achieved with- 
out it. 

We admit, and in the conclusion of this work shall more 
emphatically state, the necessity of a Divine influence to 
convert the soul ; but still the Spirit works by means, and 
by means well adapted to accomplish the end proposed. 
We do not look for the Spirit to convert souls without the 
truth ; it is by the presentation of this to the judgment, 
and by the co- working of Divine grace upon the heart, 
that the great change of regeneration is effected. It is 
evident, however, that this blessed result can take place 
only in those cases where the truth is really contemplated. 
The attention must be fixed upon it, or no result can take 
place. Attention, and, to a certain extent, abstraction 
of mind, may be said to be essentially necessary to the 
work of conversion. Hence those preachers are not only 
likely to be most useful, but are most useful, who have the 
greatest power of fixing attention upon the truth, and hold- 
ing the mind in a state of abstraction from all other topics. 
When the attention is so withdrawn by their manner of 
preaching from foreign matters and fixed upon the truth 
then presented, the Spirit in a way of sovereign mercy 
gives forth his influence, to change the evil bias of the 
heart towards the truth thus exhibited to the understand- 



EARNESTNESS. 227 

ing faculty. We perceive in different preachers very va- 
rious kinds of power to engage the attention : some do it 
by a commanding eloquence ; others by an impressive ora- 
tory ; others by a burning ardor ; others by a melting 
affection ; and som? even by eccentricity ; but amidst all 
this specific variety of manner we shall find the one pre- 
vailing characteristic to be, an adaptation to arrest and fix 
the attention. A preacher may be immeasurably inferior 
to many others in the vigor of his intellect and richness of 
his imagination, and yet may be very far their superior in 
seizing and holding the minds of his hearers. We cannot 
hope to do good if w T e do not succeed in gaining the at- 
tention of the hearers ; and our expectations of accomplish- 
ing the objects of our ministry may be indulged witk 
much confidence, if w r e can so preach as to compel our 
hearers, so to speak, to listen to us. There is a striking 
incident mentioned in the Life and Remains of Mr. Cecil, 
of St. John's Chapel, Bedford Row, that master of pulpit 
eloquence. He was once invited to preach in a village 
where the joyful sound of evangelical truth was rarely 
heard in the parish church, and w 7 here he thought it prob- 
able he should have no other opportunity to proclaim it. 
To his mortification, when he had got half-way through the 
sermon he perceived that he had not succeeded in gaining 
that close attention of the people which he deemed essen- 
tial to the success of his sermon. The time was going by, 
the case seemed desperate, and it occurred to him that 
something must be done, or the opportunity w^as lost ; and 
pausing for a moment where the subject admitted of his 
trying his experiment, he. said, with some degree of that 
impressiveness which pertained to him, "Last Monday 
morning a man was hanged at Tyburn,'' and then w r ent on 
to make the recent execution bear uj on the subject of dis- 



228 MOTIVES TO 

course. The expedient of course succeeded, the wander- 
ing eyes of the congregation were fixed upon the preacher, 
and their truant minds upon the sermon. He gained their 
attention, which was riveted to him through the remainder 
of the discourse. Such self-possession is a noble qualifi- 
cation for a public speaker ; and the moral of the anecdote 
is, — we must have the attention of our congregations, or 
we can do them no good ; and the more we can command 
this, so as to lead them to think of the truth, the more likely 
we are to do them good. The history of all successful 
preachers will prove that, amidst a vast variety of means 
of gaining this, they each had the power of doing it, and 
in that power lay the secret of their success. 

Let any one who is at all in doubt whether the impor- 
tance of earnestness is overstated in this work, consider who 
among departed ministers have been, and who among liv- 
ing ones are, the most distinguished as successful preachers 
of the word of God. If he apply this to the fathers and 
founders of Nonconformity, he w T ill find that in the first 
rank stand Baxter, Bunyan, Doolittle, Clarkson, Fla- 
vel, Heywood, and Howe ; and when he has read their 
glowing, and pungent, and powerful appeals to the hearts 
and consciences of sinners, he will not wonder that such 
sermons effected the high purpose for which all sermons 
should be preached, that is, the conversion of sinners. 
Coming on to later times, it is unnecessary, after what has 
been said, to mention Whitfield and Wesley, except to 
reiterate that in addition to other high and nobler qualities, 
earnestness was the great means of their extensive success. 
They lived and labored for scarcely anything else than 
the salvation of immortal souls. As a proof of the intensity 
of their zeal, reference may be made to the race of men 
into whom they breathed the fervor of their own souls, 



EARNESTNESS 229 

and whom they raised up now and then, to carry on their 
own great work. With here and there an exception, the 
present race of Methodist and Dissenting ministers are 
stiff, formal, cold-hearted men, compared with not only 
the leaders, but the next immediate followers of those illus- 
trious instruments of the modern revival of evangelical re- 
ligion. How few of us are worthy to be mentioned with 
Coke and Fletcher, Rowland Hill, Berridge and G-rim- 
shaw ; with Cecil, Newton, and Romaine. What men 
were raised up in Wales by the Whitfield movement ? 
Daniel Rowland, Jones of Llangan, Howell Harris, and 
their successors, John Elias, Christmas Evans, and Wil- 
liams, of Wern ; men who caused the mountains of their 
own romantic country to echo to their mighty voices, and 
filled its valleys with the fruit of their impassioned oratory. 
If we look across the Atlantic, what a wonderful man do 
we discover in Jonathan Edwards, whose printed ser- 
mons, and which were only in accordance with his ordinary 
ministry, are full of such earnestness as is exhibited in the 
specimen given earlier in this work, whose ministry was so 
full of its successful results. Call to recollection Stod- 
dart, Bellamy, Dwight, Davies, who, in the land of the 
pilgrim fathers, diffused abroad by their unreserved devoted- 
ness, the savor of that Name which is above every name. 
In Scotland there have been the Erskines, the McLaurins, 
the Walkers, the Dicksons, and others of by-gone days, 
whose remains tell us how they handled the word of 
God, and whose memoirs inform us with what success. 
In these venerated men we see the secret of all ministe- 
rial power, a desire amounting to a fervor for the conversion 
of sinners, and an adaptation to accomplish this in their 
'preaching. 

If the illustrious company of reformers, who present the 



230 MOTIVES TO 

most august examples of burning zeal, next to the apostles, 
be not referred to, if the majestic and mighty Luther, 
the profound Calvin, the heroic Zuinglb, the intrepid 
Knox, the elegant and classic Melancthon, are passed 
over, it is not only because they are too well known to need 
a mention, but also because they may be thought too 
high above the ordinary sphere of ministerial activity to 
be imitated : and yet if the pattern of the great Master 
himself is placed before us for contemplation and imitation, 
surely that of the most renowned of his servants need not 
be withheld. What singleness of aim, and unity of pur- 
pose, and concentration of energy were there in these rare 
and extraordinary men, and what less could have carried 
them on through their noble career ? 

But descending to others, what men have been with us 
in the recollection of the present generation, and the brilliant 
horizon of whose setting sun has scarcely ceased even yet 
to glow with the radiance of their names : the gigantic 
Fuller, the mighty Hall, the seraphic Pearce, and the 
lion-hearted Knibb ; the intellectual Watson, and the mas- 
culine Bogue ; the eccentric yet generous and command- 
ing Wilks, the judicious Roby, the mild yet persuasive 
Burder, the pathetic Waugh, the wise and tender Grif- 
fin, the captivating and lovely Spencer, and the eloquent 
McAll. Honored be their names, fragrant their memo- 
ries, precious be the recollection of their example ! May 
we who survive cherish the recollection of their life and la- 
bors, and never forget that their greatness and their use- 
fulness arose not more from their talents than from their 
devoted earnestness in the cause of evangelical truth. 

But descending to others and to living examples, more 
upon the ordinary level, it may be well to look round upon 
those by whom, in our own day and before our own eyes, 



EARNESTNESS. 231 

the ends of the Christian ministry, and the object of evan- 
gelical preaching, are most extensively accomplished, and 
to inquire by what order of means this has been done. It 
■would be invidious to mention the names of living men, to 
select from among the multitude those who are pre-emi- 
nent above their fellows in usefulness, in popularity, in the 
constant exhibition of evangelical truth. Two names, how- 
ever, may her 3 obtain a place, honored by us all, and an 
honor to us ; the names of men of widely differing yet 
equally conspicuous and acknowledged excellencies, who 
are too far above us to excite our envy, and whose celebrity 
will defend tins willing, affectionate, and admiring testi- 
mony, from the charge of invidious selection or fulsome 
adulation; and who, each in his own sphere, one in the 
northern, the other in the southern hemisphere, is shed- 
ding the lustre of an evening star, and reflecting upon the 
church the glory of that great Sun of Righteousness in 
whose attraction it has been their delight through a long 
and holy, and useful life, to revolve ; who yet live, and 
long may they live, that our younger ministry may learn 
in the holy labors of Chalmers and Jay, how beautiful 
and how useful is human genius, when sanctified by grace 
and devoted to an earnest preaching of the gospel of sal- 
vation. 

But we are not considering now what may be done, and 
is done, by the gifted few, who by their rare endowments 
are fitted, as well as designed, to enrich our theological 
literature by their valuable works, or to gather around 
their pulpits the literary or philosophical spirits of the 
place in which they dwell : these are the exceptions in all 
denominations to the general rule of preachers, even as 
those who listen to them are the exceptions to the general 
rule of hearers. Our remarks apply to the men who move 



232 MOTIVES TO 

the masses, who operate upon the popular mind as it is 
most commonly found ; and what are they f not perhaps 
men of high scholarship, profound philosophy, or elegant 
composition ; but men of energy and earnestness ; men lay- 
ing themselves out for usefulness; men of tact and of 
business in the management of their fellow-men ; men of 
heart, of feeling, and perseverance. Where is a large con- 
gregation, a flourishing, well-compacted church to be 
found? — there is an earnest man. Where, in what coun- 
try, or in what denomination, does one such man labor 
without considerable success? Where has the faithful, 
devoted, energetic preacher of evangelical truth, to borrow 
and use in a figurative sense the words of the Lord's fore- 
runner, had to say, " I am the voice of one crying in the 
wilderness ?" Where do we find small congregations, dis- 
satisfied or declining churches, and empty chapels ? Where 
do the ways of Zion mourn, and her gates languish, be- 
cause none come to her solemn feasts ? Certainly not 
where the ministers are as flames of fire. No matter where, 
or under what discouraging circumstances, such a man, 
who is one of these sacred flames, may commence his la- 
bors, he will soon draw around him a deeply interested 
and attentive congregation : no matter what may be the 
denomination with which he may be associated, he will not 
only excite the indifference, or subdue the prejudice, by 
which he is surrounded, but will awaken interest and con- 
ciliate regard. Under the magic power of his devotedness, 
blessed as it will be by God the Spirit, the verdure and 
beauty of spring will succeed to the gloom, desolation, and 
sterility of winter, and the wilderness and the solitary place 
shall be glad for him, and the desert rejoice and blossom 
as the rose. In some cases, the change has been as sud- 
den and as complete as in Russia, from hybernal frosts ana 



EARNESTNESS. 233 

snows to vernal flowers and fragrance : churches that 
seemed only the repositories of the dead, and places for 
monuments and epitaphs, have become crowded with living 
and listening hearers of the joyful sound ; and chapels once 
far too large for the last remains of a former congregation, 
have been soon found too small for the new one that has 
risen up in its place. 

It would be no unpr (/Stable exercise for any one to look 
round upon some of our most successful ministers, and 
after surveying the extent of their usefulness, to say to 
himself, " How has that man done this ? What have been 
the means by which, under God, he has accomplished so 
much ?" Unhappily there are a few, perhaps, who are 
so enamored of what is literary, intellectual, or philosoph- 
ical, that even in large ministerial success they see little 
to admire or to covet, if this be not associated with scholar- 
ship and science. This is a bad state of mind, indicates a 
worse state of heart, and proves that the man who is the 
subject of it, has totally mistaken the end of the ministe- 
rial office. There are some of our most useful preachers, 
who are far more conscious of their literary and philosoph- 
ical defects, than these supercilious scholars can possibly 
be ; and who would purchase, if they could be obtained 
by money, at almost any cost, if they had the means, the 
high attainments which their more limited education never 
enabled them to acquire : but at the same time they would 
not give up their usefulness for all the literature of Greece 
and Rome, with all mathematics and philosophy in addi- 
tion ; and amidst their deficiencies in all that would give 
them weight and influence in the world of letters, feel 
adoringly thankful for all that weight and influence which 
they have acquired in the church. Their labors in the 
pulpit have gained them an acceptance vhich is far more 



234 MOTIVES TO 

surprising to themselves than it can be to others. Perad- 
venture, also, they may have adventured on the sea of au- 
thorship, and have had a prosperous course, where many 
expected they must soon make shipwreck. None can be 
more sensible than themselves of their defects in composi- 
tion, and often they have been ready to blame their pre- 
sumption in taking up their pen, and to resolve to lay it 
down forever, when perhaps some instance of usefulness 
has come to their knowledge, as if to reprove their vanity, 
wounded by a sense of their own deficiencies, and to make 
them thank God and take courage. They knew their own 
department of literary action, and aimed at nothing higher 
than to be useful ; willing to bear the sneer of literary 
pride and endure the lash of critical severity, if this one 
only object of their ambition could be accomplished, the 
salvation of immortal souls, and the establishment of be- 
lievers in their holy faith. Such men there are among us, 
who owe not their success to a finished education, for it 
was their misfortune not to enjoy this precious advantage 
to the same extent to which it is now carried ; nor to high 
scholarship, to which they make no pretensions ; but to an 
intense desire to be useful, and to something of earnestness 
in carrying out the desires of their hearts : and in addition 
to the direct usefulness they have accomplished by their 
own labors, they may be abundantly useful in another 
way, by showing that where large literary acquisitions 
cannot be obtained, still simple earnestness without them 
may be blessed of God, for accomplishing in no inconsid- 
erable extent the great ends of the Christian ministry. 

It has been said that a man who has decision of charac- 
ter enough to make up his mind to the determination to 
be rich ; who has a good share of talents to uphold his 
Resolution, and a rigid system of self-denying economy, 



EARNESTNESS. 235 

will ordinarily succeed ; and observation seems to a con- 
siderable extent to support the remark. With far greater 
certainty may it be said, that he who enters upon his min- 
istry with an intense zeal for God, an ardent passion for the 
salvation of souls ; and with this, sustained by deep piety, 
a tolerable share of talents and acquirement, and a fixed 
purpose in humble dependence upon God's grace, to be a 
useful minister of Christ, will not fail of his end. The 
failure of such a man would be a new thing in the earth. 
We know of no such case, and we may not expect to know 
it. W T e say to every sinner, in calling him to repentance, 
he may be saved if he will : not intending by such an ex- 
pression, that he can be saved without the Spirit of God ; 
but that he may secure that Divine power if he have faith 
to receive it : so we may almost venture to say to every 
minister of Christ, it is his own fault if he is not useful ; 
intending by such an assertion, that as the gospel he 
preaches is God's own truth ; as preaching is his own in- 
stitute ; as the minister is his own servant ; and as to all 
this, he has added the promise of his grace, it w^ould seem 
as if in the case of entire or extensive failure, he has him- 
self to blame. 

But we may look at the power of earnestness, as seen 
not only in the cause of truth, but of error. It has often 
served a bad cause as well as a good one. Islamism owes 
its existence and its wide dominion to this quality, in its 
extraordinary founder: Mohammed exhibits one of the 
most wonderful instances of this the world ever witnessed ; 
and with what dreadful results was it followed in his case ! 
We may say the same of Popery : that stupendous fabric 
of delusion, which throws its dark and chilling shadow 
over so large a portion of Christendom, owes its erection 
and its continuance to the intense devotedness with which it 



236 MOTIVES TO 

has inspired its votaries : it is this that upholds a system 
constantly at war against the dictates of reason, the doc- 
trines of revelation, and the dearest rights and liberties of 
humanity. It is this mysterious and indomitable earnest- 
ness of the priesthood, which has resisted the attacks of 
logic, rhetoric, and piety; of divines, philosophers, and 
statesmen ; of wit, humor, and ridicule ; and which in this 
age of learning and science, commerce and liberty, not only 
enables it to maintain its ground, but to advance and make 
conquests. The Church of Rome, which would, in the 
hands of a lukewarm priesthood, fall by the weight of its 
own absurdity, or be crushed by the hands of its constant 
assailants, is still strong in the hearts of its members ; each 
of whom, from the Pope down, through all its civil and 
ecclesiastical gradations, to the most insignificant member, 
is a type of concentrated and intensely glowing zeal. 

The pages of ecclesiastical history furnish us with some 
extraordinary instances of the power of the pulpit, as ex- 
hibited in the cases of some Popish preachers. I do not 
now refer to the court of Louis the Fourteenth, which, 
with that grand and licentious monarch at its head, was 
subdued into a transient frame and season of devoutness 
by the sermons of Massillon, but to the preaching of 
far inferior, and less known orators, and to effects less 
courtly, but not less striking. When Connecte, an Ital- 
ian, preached, the ladies committed their gay dresses by 
hundreds to the flames. When Narni taught the popu- 
lace in Lent, from the pulpits of Rome, half the city 
went from his sermons, crying along the streets, Lord have 
mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us ; so that in only 
one passion week, two thousand crowns' worth of ropes 
were sold to make scourges with ; and when he preached 
before the Pope, to cardinals and bishops, and painted the 



EARNESTNESS. 237 

crime of non-residence in its own colors, he frightened 
thirty or forty bishops, who heard him, instantly to their 
own dioceses. In the pulpit at Salamanca, he induced 
eight hundred students to quit all worldly prospects of 
honor, riches, and pleasure, and to become penitents in 
divers monasteries. Some of this class were martyrs too. 
Here then was the power of earnestness ; but being in 
this case given to the cause of error, being directed 
rather to the imagination than to the heart, and intended 
to correct mere ceremonial irregularities, rather than to 
lead to repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord 
Jesus Christ, we are not surprised that the storm of 
passion soon subsided ; that Narni himself was so dis- 
gusted with his office, that he renounced preaching, and 
shut himself up in his cell, to mourn over his irreclaim- 
able contemporaries ; for bishops went back to court, 
and rope-makers lay idle again. This striking fact is 
replete with instruction, not only as showing the power of 
the pulpit, but at the same time the essential feebleness 
of that religion which does not aim at the renovation 
of the heart, and the transient nature of that effect 
which is produced by mere rhetoric, unaccompanied by 
a sober exhibition of the truth to enlighten the judg- 
ment, warm the afleetions, and awaken the conscience. 

But it is not only on this grand scale that we see the 
power and success of an ardent zeal, even in a bad cause ; 
for there is no system of opinions, nor any course of relig- 
ious practice, however remote, not only from the truth of 
revelation, but from the dictates of common sense, and 
even the decorum of society, but what, if preached and 
propagated by men of intense ardor, will gain, for awhile, 
some disciples to believe it, and even some apostles to 
propagate it. If men are really in earnest in blowing bub- 



238 MOTIVES TO 

bles, some will be found to look at, to admire, and to fol- 
low their airy and unsubstantial balloons. It has been 
already said, that earnestness is contagious : a man in this 
state of mind and action, is sure to draw some others under 
the influence of his own example. If this is the case with 
a bad cause, how much more may we expect it to be so in 
a good one. Everything, then, combines to prove, that 
our want of success must be traced up, rather to our neg- 
lect of the right means to obtain it, than to any backward- 
ness on the part of God to give his blessing to our own 
intelligent, judicious, and earnest exertions. 

VII. The state of our denomination demands immediate 
and devoted attention to the subject. 

In speaking of our own denomination, we find in its 
general condition, much cause for thankfulness and con- 
gratulation. In the number of our churches and the compe- 
tency of a very large* number of their pastors ; in our col- 
leges and schools ; in our missionary and other organiza- 
tions ; in our periodical and other religious literature ; in 
our public spirit and liberality — we see signs of prosperity, 
and tokens for good : and if we are true to ourselves and 
to our cause, we have nothing to fear. Our opponents 
cannot do us so much harm as we may do to ourselves. 
With a system of doctrine which we believe is taken from 
the New Testament, and a system of polity which, in all 
its general principles, is derived from the same source, we 
may not only stand our ground, but advance, if we will 
present the former in all its fullness, and will administer 
the latter with discretion and charity. Everything, under 
God's blessing, depends upon our ministry. This, which 
is important to every denomination, is especially so to 
ours. We go forth, not only unsupported by the wealth and 
the power of the Established Church, but without the aid 



EARNESTNESS. 239 

of that elaborately organized combination which is to be 
found in some sections that separate from it. Our minis- 
ters, so to speak, do not contend in regiments and in rank 
and file, but single-handed, and should therefore be all 
picked men, each possessed of courage and of skill. Let 
us only take care to send none but such into the field, and 
we may hope for a still more abundant measure of pros- 
perity than we at present enjoy. There is room enough 
for all denominations in the vast wilderness of our neg- 
lected and unchristianized population, and we have no 
need to look at each other's labors with jealousy and envy. 
Satan is ruining souls faster than all of us united can save 
them. It is a mark of deep malignity of heart, and a proof 
that it is the distempered zeal of bigotry that moves us, 
and not a pure love to God and souls, when we see with 
uneasiness the success of other denominations of evangel- 
ical Christians, and rejoice over their failure. To seize 
with avidity any acknowledgements of, and lamentations 
over, a want of usefulness, and then tearing them from 
their connection and exa^^eratingr their statements, to hold 
them up exultingly to the world, and tauntingly to the 
denomination from which in frankness and in sorrow they 
have come, may suit well with the strategy of polemical 
warfare, and serve the cause of a party, but ill accords 
with the spirit of divine charity, and promotes but little 
*ihe cause of our common Christianity, 
f In how many places of worship connected with the Estab- 
lishment, and even where the gospel is preached, but preached 
with feebleness, do we find small congregations, and few 
souls converted to God. Do we rejoice over this ? On the 
contrary, it is for a grief and a lamentation. And is there 
a heart so envenomed with the gall of bigotry, as to 
rejoice in the confession that is now made, that many of 



240 MOTIVES TO 

our congregations are withering away under the effete min- 
istrations of incompetent men ? Such a withering is in- 
deed going on in many places. The fact cannot be con- 
cealed, it is notorious. We have been incautious in the 
admission, not of bad men, for few of these ever find their 
way into our pulpits — not of heretical men, for we take 
care not to receive such- -but of incompetent men; not 
always incompetent in intellect, but in talents for public 
speaking, and the active duties of the pastorate. From 
this cause, combined with the increased energy and activ- 
ity of the Church of England, our congregations are 
diminishing in some places, though multiplying and in- 
creasing in others. Y\ 7 ith the freedom of action Ave pos- 
sess, unrestricted by parochial limits and ecclesiastical laws ; 
with the world all before us, and Providence our guide ; 
with a good feeling towards us on the part of the middle and 
lower classes, we have every ground to hope for success, 
if we can obtain an adequate number of energetic and 
earnest preachers : but we have not taken sufficient care 
to find out and educate this right sort of men, and in some 
places are certainly losing ground. Considerable towns 
might be mentioned, where congregations once numerous 
and flourishing are reduced down to mere skeletons under 
the dull and deadening influence of heartless men, and 
yet perhaps good men too. It is more easy to settle an 
incompetent minister over a church than to remove him. 
It is true, we have advantages for such removal not pos- 
sessed by the Church of England. The pastorate is not 
in our churches a freehold ; yet it must be confessed that 
even with us the difficulty of getting rid of a pastor, 
except for immorality or heresy, and only on the ground 
of inefficiency, is not small. That a minister should wish 
to stay when he has preached away nearly all his congre- 



EARNESTNESS. 241 

gation, breeds a suspicion of the purity of his motives, and 
is a reflection upon the integrity of his character. To 
reduce a congregation and scatter a church, first by ineffi- 
ciency, and then by obstinacy in retaining his post in oppo- 
sition to the wishes of his flock and the advice of his 
friends, is a serious matter to accoimt for to God. Some 
such men talk of waiting for the leadings of Providence. 
One is at a loss to find out what rule of interpretation for 
ascertaining the will of God they have adopted : to every- 
body else but themselves, deserted pews and a dissatisfied 
as well as a reduced church, are a sufficient indication of 
the leadings of Providence for their removal. In such a 
case one should suppose there needed no voice from heav- 
en to say to the minister, " Arise, and go hence ;" nor 
any finger to come forth, and in flaming characters write 
" Ichabod" on the walls. It is sometimes said, in refer- 
ence to such men and their flocks, that the people must 
suffer the consequences of a hasty choice : and so Kir as 
they are concerned, they deserve it ; but then they suffer 
not alone, for the denomination in its strength, and charac- 
ter, and efficiency, suffers with them. The work of con- 
version, not only in our own denomination, but in the 
Church of England, and among the Methodists, goes on 
but slowly, and the spirituality of the great bulk of pro- 
fessors is too low. This is confessed and lamented by the 
Evangelical clergy, and by the Wesleyan ministers, as 
Well as by ourselves. The Spirit's influence seems in 
some way and from some cause obstructed, and in the 
absence of this, our denomination is more likely to feel 
and manifest the visible results of it than almost any 
other; and such a consideration should lead us to more 
serious thoughtfulness and earnest prayer for a revived and 
intensely devoted ministry. 

11 



CHAPTER X. 

MEANS TO BE USED FOR OBTAINING AN EARNEST 
MINISTRY. 

This is a most important part of our subject; for how- 
ever desirable the blessing may be, yet if it cannot be ob- 
tained, or if there are no means by which we can obtain it, 
the discussion and contemplation of it are quite useless, and 
even worse than this, being calculated only to excite a fruit- 
less wish, or what is most injurious of all, a disposition to 
neglect the means we have, in the hopeless desire after what 
we have not. But we are not to entertain so desponding 
a view. Such men there have been, and, blessed be God, 
such men there are, and that in no small number, in every 
section of the Christian church ; men laboring with intelli- 
gence and zeal, and success, both in the metropolis and in 
the provinces ; men of whom their age need not be 
ashamed, and over whom any age would have rejoiced. 
Still there are too many of an opposite character ; far too 
many to render the question impertinent and out of season, 
" How shall such a ministry be obtained ?" 

I. It is imperative, first of all, to have the truth deeply 
engraven upon all hearts, that the church is the conservator 
of the Christian ministry, and that it is her business, and 
almost her first and most important business, to see that 



MEANS FOR AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 243 

she discharge well her duty in this momentous affair. She 
has not only to provide for her own edification at the pres- 
ent time, but also to secure, by all possible vigilance and 
care, the administrative transmission of our holy religion 
through every age, pure, and undefined, and unimpaired in 
its capacity to confer essential and eternal benefits upon the 
children of men. But then it is obvious that for such a 
function the church must be regarded as a purely spiritual 
body. And it should be deemed a question of no small 
moment bearing upon the controversy about church gov- 
ernment, what system of polity has the most direct tend- 
ency and the greatest power to call out, to secure, and to 
perpetuate, an evangelical and effective ministry. An 
ecclesiastical system which of itself has no effectual provis- 
ion for this, cannot surely be of divine origin, and that of 
which the tendency to this is most obvious and direct, is 
most in accordance with the word of God. A church 
without such a conservative principle cannot be the church 
of the New Testament, much less that which includes va- 
rious and ever-active influences against it. Nothing but a 
spiritual church can provide a spiritual ministry, and what- 
ever spiritual ministry a worldly church may have, cannot 
be so much the result of the system itself, as of something 
extraneous to it : and even in spiritual churches, if disci- 
pline be relaxed, and worldly-minded persons be admitted, 
the conservative principle, which in fact consists of the vital 
piety of the members, is impaired ; and if, at the same 
time, there be neglect of discipline, it will be altogether 
lost, and heretical men come in to fill the places of those 
who were the preachers of the truth as it is in Jesus. It 
is well, therefore, for all our churches to bear in constant 
recollection, this their high and sacred function as conser- 
vators of an evangelical ministry, and to maintain the power 



244 MEANS TO OBTAIN" 

of vital godliness, and the exercise of a salutary discipline, 
as that in which this power of conservation resides. Let 
the churches consider their high, their glorious commission ; 
let them remember they must be of such character, and 
such order, that Christian truth as to its essential doctrines 
and holy practice, and at the same time the calling out 
and supporting such men to uphold and preach it, may be 
safely trusted to their vigilance and care. But let them 
forget this, and corrupt their fellowship by the admission of 
worldly-minded professors, " the mounds are gone, the 
fence is broken up, and wolves may enter in, not sparing 
the flock. Preserve this spiritual condition of the church, 
and it is, what it was intended it should be, an undying 
torch, which, while it is the light of the present age, shall 
safely light successive ages along the only way which leads 
to happiness and heaven.' ' 

II. Let the subject be thoroughly considered, and univer- 
sally admitted, that this is the ministry we want, and must 
have. 

In an age, like the present, when so much is said about 
knowledge, and such high value is attached to it, there is 
a danger of our being seduced from every other qualifi- 
cation, and taken up with this. The establishment of the 
London University, and the incorporation of our Colleges 
with it, have given access for our students to the fount of 
academic degrees and honors ; and there is some danger, 
in the new condition of our literary institutions, lest our 
young men should have their minds in some measure drawn 
away from much more important matters, by the hope of 
having their names graced by a Bachelor's or a Master's 
degree. It is a foolish clamor that has been raised against 
all attention to such matters, and a vain and barbarous 
precaution, that would fortify the ministerial devotedneoS 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 245 

of our students by restraining them altogether from such 
scholastic distinctions. The studies necessary to enable 
them to attain the object of their ambition, are a part of 
their professional education ; "while the vanity likely to be 
engendered by success, will soon be annihilated by the com- 
monness of the acquisition. Pride and vanity are founded 
on conscious distinction, and when these academic Univer- 
sity degrees are so common that almost all ministers pos- 
sess them, they will no longer be a snare to the humility of 
tlreir possessors. Besides, like every other object of hu- 
man desire, when once they are possessed, much of the 
charm that dazzles the eye of hope has vanished. Henry 
Martin, when he came from the Senate-house at Cam- 
bridge, where he had been declared Senior Wrangler for 
his year, and had thus won the richest prize the University 
had to confer, was struck with the vanity of human wishes, 
and expressed his surprise at the comparative worthlessness 
of the bauble he had gained, and the shadow he had 
grasped. No, it is not by closing the door against such 
distinctions that we can hope to rake the tone of devoted- 
ness in our ministry, but by fostering in the minds of our 
young men at College, and equally in the minds of our con- 
gregations, and ministers in general, the conviction that 
earnestness is just that one thing, to which all other things 
must be, and can be, made subservient, and without which 
all other things are as nothing, whatever else education 
can impart. 

Our congregations need perhaps a little instruction on 
this subject. I am afraid the taste is not quite so pure, 
correct, and elevated on this matter as it should be. There 
is, it is true, a demand, and it is well there is, for a viva- 
cious and animated manner of preaching ; and provided 
there be what is intellectual, there is a decided preference 



246 MEANS TO OBTAIN 

for what is evangelical in association with :t ; but there is 
reason to fear that in some cases a small modicum of evan- 
gelical truth would do, provided there was an abundance 
of talent. Earnestness is demanded, but with some, it is 
rather the earnestness of the head than of the heart ; the 
labored and eloquent effusion of the scholar, the philoso- 
pher, or the poet, rather than the gush of hallowed feeling 
of him who watcheth for souls, as one that must give ac- 
count. Dullness, however learned or profound, will not do, 
but the heartless declamations of the pulpit orator will do 
for some, though it have little tendency to do anything 
more than please the intellect or captivate the imagination. 
There is an idolatry of talent in this day w hich runs through 
society ; and this man-worship has crept also into the 
church, and corrupted its members. It is painful to per- 
ceive how far this is carried in many circles, and to see 
what homage is paid, what incense is burnt to some popular 
favorites. It is not religion or holiness that is thus elevated, 
but genius and knowledge : it is not moral beauty, but 
intellectual strength, that is lauded to the skies : the loftiest 
models of human goodness receive but few devotees and 
scanty offerings at their shrine, compared with the gods of 
the understanding. There can be no surer mark of a moral 
apostacy, a lapse from man's primeval innocence when he 
came perfect from the hands of his Maker, bearing the 
moral image of his Creator, than this disposition to exalt 
genius above piety. What an inversion is this of the right 
order of things, since it must be allowed that man's intel- 
lectual nature is inferior and subordinate to his moral being. 
It is by this latter that he is removed to the greatest dis- 
tance from the brute creation, is placed in most direct op- 
position to fallen spirits, makes his nearest approach to the 
angels of God, and bears the most correct resemblance to 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 247 

the Holy and Eternal One. The God of the Bible is iiot 
merely a Divine intellect, though it be true that his under- 
standing is infinite : nor is Omniscience his only attribute, 
though this is one of his glorious perfections ; — but God is 
Love ; and when the seraphim select for the subject of their 
anthem that view of his nature which calls forth their 
loftiest praise, they contemplate him as the Holy, Holy, 
Holy, Lord God Almighty. Infinite goodness, and not 
merely infinite greatness, is the Deity we are called by the 
inspired writers to worship, and all the most sublime spec- 
ulations or descriptions of God that are not founded upon 
true goodness, are but the mere inventions of men's minds, 
and no true copies of God's representations of his own na- 
ture. The prevailing disposition, therefore, to do such 
homage to talent, rather than to moral excellence, is only 
another species of idolatry that exists in our world, more 
refined and subtle than the worship of stocks and stones, 
but still scarcely less guilty. 

That some respect must be paid to talent, even in the 
ministry of the word, is admitted ; such a disposition is 
inseparable from human nature, and is a part of the design 
of God in creating our race, and forming man with varied 
powers of the understanding : a fine intellect is to be ad- 
mired as well as an elegant form or beautiful flower ; and 
so much the more 'as that which is mental is superior to 
what is corporeal. But when the Christian public shall 
be so enamored of talent as to admire that more than 
the message which it is employed to set forth ; when no 
preacher can be heard with pleasure or endurance, how- 
ever souAd his doctrine, or clear his statements, or impres- 
sive his manner, or earnest his address, unless his discourse 
is radiant with the light of genius, or fragrant with the 
flowers of rhetori: ; when truth itself is unpalatable unless 



r*48 MEANS TO OBTAIN 

i' oe sweetened with the honey of human eloquence, and 
even error so sweetened can be swallowed for the sake of 
the luscious accompaniment ; when the hearer of a sermon 
can turn from it with disgust, because it fails to regale his 
fancy by the brilliancy of its images, or to lull his ear by 
the smoothness and harmony of its periods ; when this is 
the state of the puolic taste; and it is to be feared that to 
a great extent it is the state of it ; surely, surely, it is time 
to call the attention of our congregations to something 
higher and better than such matters as these. 

No one who is attentive to the features of the age, can 
doubt that there is much now going on which has an 
obvious tendency, though of course not a design, to cor 
rupt in some degree the simplicity of the public taste with 
reference to preachers and their sermons. The pulpit has 
some reason to be jealous of the platform, and the sermon 
of the speech. If the modern practice of endless speech- 
ifying had only done something to break down the stiffness 
and formality of sermonic speaking, and to introduce a 
more easy, fluent, and energetic method of address on the 
part of the preacher, and a corresponding taste for a more 
vivacious method of instruction on the part of the people, 
it would have conferred a substantial benefit ; but with 
this has come, perhaps, the opposite evil of making the 
preacher too oratorical and the people too fastidious, and 
of destroying somewhat of the solemnity and spirituality 
of both. No doubt some degree of earnestness will come 
in with this, but it may be it is the earnestness which is 
anxious to please, rather than that which is desirous to 
convert, which aims to gratify the fancy rather than to 
save the soul. 

It is in vam then to hope for such a ministry as that 
which it is the object of this work to describe and to recom- 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 249 

mend, till our congregations are brought to see its vast 
importance, and. to demand that it shall be given them. In 
tins cuse, as in every other, both the demand will bring 
the supply as well as the supply create the demand. 
When the churches shall be brought up to that state of 
piety, that deep solicitude about salvation, that intenseness 
of pursuit of eternal life, which shall make them anxious 
for ministers who will aid them in this momentous busi- 
ness ; and when they shall say to the tutors and commit- 
tees of our colleges, " You must not only send us learned 
men, but earnest men/' then will the minds of our excel- 
lent professors be still more fixed on the most essential 
qualifications of the Christian ministry, and still more 
anxiously endeavor to meet this demand. And when our 
destitute congregations shall let it be distinctly known that 
it is not merely a Master of Arts, nor a merely eloquent 
speaker, nor even a good divine, that they want, but one 
who shall watch for their souls, and feed the flock of God, 
the attention of our young ministers will be still more 
turned upon the end of their ministry and the necessary 
qualifications for the just discharge of its functions. Let 
the church therefore only be rightly instructed on this sub- 
ject, and fix properly its standard ; let it be brought up to 
this conviction, that nothing less and nothing else than 
such men as are intently fixed upon saving souls, will be 
likely to be useful ; and such men will come at its bidding ; 
especially if — 

III. There be much earnest prayer presented to God for 
such a blessing. It must never be forgotten that ministers 
are called, qualified, and blessed by the Lord, the Spirit. 
Hence the promise of God to the Jews, " I will give you 
pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you 
with knowledge and with understanding ;" and also the 



250 MEANS TO OBTAIN 

language of the apostle, " He gave some pastors and 
teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of 
the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." It 
was a special injunction of Christ to his disciples, and in- 
tended to apply to his people in every age, to pray to the 
Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into the field. 
From these passages, as well as from the general principle 
that every good gift is from the Lord, we learn that a 
faithful ministry is one of God's gifts, and a precious one 
t is ; and were the church in a high spiritual state, this 
would constitute one of its chief subjects of prayer. Per- 
haps we are not brought to feel with sufficient depth of 
conviction our dependence upon God for this great bless- 
ing, for there is little doubt that the cl arch's possessions 
and che church's prayers would beai in this particular 
some tolerable proportion to each other. We cannot con- 
ceive of any case in which the promise " Ask, and ye shall 
receive," would be so abundantly fulfilled, as in reference 
to this. It has not been enough considered what kind of 
men are wanted at all times, and especially in these, for 
the ministry of reconciliation ; that in fact we need men 
formed exactly and in all respects, except inspiration and 
the power to work miracles, upon the apostolical model, 
Much the same work is now to be done as was done by 
them, and we must have men as full of the power of God, 
and the graces of the Holy Spirit, to do it. Let it be seen 
what ministers have to contend with in this day of their 
vocation; not indeed the spirit of persecution, not san- 
guinary laws, not the amphitheatre, the axe, or the stake ; 
but obstacles almost as formidable as these things, and in 
some respects more so ; for such impediments, if they less- 
ened the number of professors, raised those that stood 
firm into the devotion of seraphs, the courage of heroes. 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY 251 

and the constancy of martyrs ; — but our obstacles are the 
emasculating influence of ease and prosperity ; the insidious 
snares of wealth, knowledge, and fashion ; the engrossing 
power of trade, politics, and secular ambition ; and then 
let any one consider what kind of preachers and pas- 
tors we want for such an age. If we had nothing more 
to do, and were contented to do this and no more, than to 
keep religion up to the low level which it now maintains, 
then ministers of common stamp might suffice ; but to 
keep in check all the enemies of vital godliness which 
threaten the devastation of the church ; to resist by the 
potency of personal example and the energy of the pulpit, 
the worldly spirit which threatens to eat out the very core 
of vital piety ; to keep up the evangelizing zeal which is 
awakened, and to blend with it a sanctity and a spirituality, 
which shall make it as effective as it is busy ; to do battle 
with all the forms of error by which our common faith is 
likely to be assailed ; and to do this not only by the force of 
intellect, but by being strong in the Lord, and in the power 
of his might — to achieve this, we want men of the same 
spirit as those who, under the direct commission of Christ, 
preached the word of salvation, with the Holy Ghost sent 
down from heaven. Have we many such men in the 
field ? If not, why not ? Must not the church of God 
blame herself, for has she sought such men by all the 
wrestling power of believing prayer? Had she felt the 
need of such men, and had lifted up not her hands, or her 
voice merely, but all the energies of her renewed nature, 
in beseeching supplication to Him who is ascended to 
bestow this very gift upon men, she would have obtained 
all she asked or wanted. Let the church only set her 
heart upon such a blessing as this, let her faith be equal 
to the expectation of it, and her prayer be as her faith, 



252 MEANS TO OBTAIN 

and she will have it. And why should she not expect it ? 
What is there in the nature of the boon that forbids her 
to look for it? Does it contradict a single promise, or 
contravene a single arrangement of her Divine Head ? 
Does it compromise his honor, or require his miraculous 
interposition? Does it involve any stepping out of his 
ordinary course of action ? Why then should it be thought 
incredible that she should obtain a more, a far more de- 
voted and successful ministry than she now possesses ? 
Does the gospel of God's grace, either at home or abroad, 
prevail as could be wished and might be expected ? Does 
the work of conversion go forward, and Christ's kingdom 
make those encroachments on the empire of darkness 
winch might be looked for ? Who will venture to answer 
in the affirmative ? Whose love to Christ and souls beats 
with so feeble a pulsation as to be satisfied with what is 
doing, and to be contented that things should go on as 
they do ? Is there nothing to be done, no way to accele- 
rate the work of redeeming mercy, no method to pour the 
principles of spiritual fertility more rapidly and more dif- 
fusively through the moral wilderness of our barren world ? 
One is yet open, and that is for Zion to awake and bestir 
herself, and lay hold of God's strength, saying, " Send us 
more laborers into the field." We have forgotten to pray 
for ministers of a right stamp. The subject has never 
occupied the place in our private, family, and social de- 
votions, which its importance demands. It has been only 
occasionally and coldly alluded to, but has not been lifted 
up to heaven with all the importunity of men who felt that 
they could not do without it. 

" Truly, if ever there was a period when the whole Christian 
world should be down upon their faces before the throne of mercy, 
imploring with all the importunity, and boldness, and perse* 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 253 

verance of faith, a race of ministers, each full of th'j Holy Ghost, 
as was Barnabas or Paul, that period is passing- over us. Not 
from one place or another, but from all quarters of the earth, tes- 
timony multiplies daily that amidst the greatest possible facilities 
for converting the world, a greatly increased and more devoted 
ministry is indispensable. This testimony comes to us, not in- 
deed as the Macedonian cry came to the apostle in a supernatural 
vision, but in a manner not less affecting or decisive as to its 
purport. It is a real sound, which flies round the land and rings 
in our esrs all the day long ; ' Send us preachers,' is the univer- 
sal, ceaseless demand, at home and abroad. It comes from more 
than a thousand of our destitute churches ; it comes from the 
cities, from the wilderness, from the islands, from the uttermost 
parts of the sea, from tracts until lately unknown to civilized man. 
This cry, which sounds so loudly and so complainingly in our 
ears, should, by general consent, be turned into prayer and sent 
up to heaven. And shall we longer forbear to do this ? Shall 
we stand and hear that unusual cry, and feel no inclination to 
direct it to the ear of him from whom help alone can come ? Is 
it not a mysterious species of infatuation to forbear to lift up our 
cry to the Lord of the harvest ? Why do we not, if this be the 
case, abjure the very religion of Jesus, and abandon ourselves, as 
well as the heathen, and the whole race of man, to despair? 
Why should not a reform forthwith commence, and the place of 
prayer have more attractions than the eloquence of any mortal, 
or any angel's tongue ? Why then will not every true Christian 
make a covenant with himself to change his life in this particular, 
and from henceforth make it one of his chief subjects of wrest- 
ling supplication, that God would give us a more faithful, earnest, 
and laborious ministry ? Why wail we not call to mind how 
Abraham, and Moses, and Ellas, and Daniel, and Paul, and above 
all, how the blessed Jesus labored in prayer, and resolve in God's 
strength to pray in the same manner ? Oh what an amount of 
beneficient power would such prayers exert upon the external 
destinies of our world ! What wonders of grace would be wit* 
nessed in our churches ; what accessions would be made to the 



254 MEANS TO OBTAIN 

sacred ministry; what an impulse would be given to the cause of 
missions ; what brightness would be shed on all the prospects of 
the church !"* 

I echo these beautiful sentiments, and earnestly implore 
for them tlie attention they demand. They touch us at 
the right point, and they speak to us at the proper season. 
We have multiplied and extended of late our collegiate 
institutions, and greatly improved our systems of ministerial 
education. We can speak of colleges whose architecture 
would not disgrace either Cambridge or Oxford, and of 
professors whose attainments in biblical literature would 
not be surpassed by many of the teachers in our national 
seats of learning ; but, as if to teach us our dependence 
upon God, few of them are at the present moment filled 
with students, and of those who are coming forth from 
them, how much fewer are the eminent and earnest men 
we would wish to see them. The same remark will apply 
to the evangelical men of the Church of England, and of 
all other denominations. I would be the last man to speak 
lightly of education, but I would be the first to caution tlie 
rhurch of Christ against the sin and the folly of making this 
our supreme dependence. Tutors can give Latin, Greek, 
and philosophy, but God alone can bestow those physical 
and spiritual gifts which constitute the chief qualifications 
for the work of the ministry. It is a fact which must have 
struck every attentive observer, that of those who are em- 
ployed in the ministry of the word, whether in the Estab- 
lished Church or out of it, very few are eminent in any 
way. The brightest flowers of humanity are not in great 
numbers laid upon the altar of the Lord. Many of those 

* Religion of the Bible. Select Discourses, by Dr. Skinner, of 
New York. 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 2£5 

who are engaged are of a common order of intellect, while, 
as in the firmament of heaven, only here and there a star 
of unusual brilliancy meets the eye and attracts the atten- 
tion by its magnitude and brightness. Let it not be said 
that God chooses the weak things of the world to con- 
found the mighty. This appertained to apostles, who, as 
they were clothed with the powder of God by their gifts 
and miracles, could dispense with all other potency ; but 
this is not the case with us, who, without appropriate 
qualifications of native talent and education, can scarcely 
expect the blessing of God. 

IV. A revived state of the church would produce a min- 
istry such, as that which has been described in the foregoing 
pages. In the natural order of things it would seem that 
the church cannot be revived without a previous revival of 
the ministry, and yet, as the ministry are the children of 
the church, they can hardly be expected to rise above the 
level of the community out of which they spring. There 
is a kind of average piety of almost every age and every 
church, and our young men rarely come with more than 
this to our colleges ; and, therefore, although we do not 
dispute the fact that little expectation can be indulged of 
an increased piety in the churches without an augmenta- 
tion of ministerial devotedness, yet, at the same time, the 
latter can almost as little be looked for without the for- 
mer. Revivals have sometimes begun with the people, 
who have drawn the ministry up to their own level. A 
lively church could not long endure a dull and lukewarm 
pastor, w T ho, if he partook not of the prevailing excitement, 
w r ould feel himself soon obliged to leave his situation. If, 
therefore, the ministry cannot revive themselves and each 
other, it were unspeakable mercy if they should receive 
an impulse from the people, 



2p6 MEANS TO OBTAIN 

Ae we have already seen, there are many things in the 
present age which are of a most auspicious character, ar.d 
which give it a lofty pre-eminence above some others that 
have preceded it. Who can witness its busy activity, its 
generous liberality, its exhaustless ingenuity, for the con- 
version of the world, without admiration and gratitude ? 
But, as we have before remarked, these are not all the 
elements of true piety, and it may be apprehended that in 
innumerable cases, these things are only the substitutes 
for the essential work of regeneration and sanctification. 
It may be feared that Satan is taking advantage of these 
matters to blind the judgment, and to delude the souls of 
many. Men of keen observation, who can penetrate the 
surface, and see what lies below, are of opinion that under- 
neath this external covering of liberality and zeal there lies 
a want of vital godliness ; that much of what we see in our 
multiplied public institutions, is but as the flowers which 
bloom in a shallow and sandy soil. They who are best 
acquainted with the state of our churches, express a doubt 
whether there is not a deplorable lack of that separation 
from the world, in its spirit and customs, which the 
Christian profession implies. While this is the case, 
the ministers who come out from such a state of things are 
likely to rise no higher than the source. Hence does it 
become our churches to consider the urgent necessity of 
their being elevated to a higher tone of piety, and of join- 
ing heartily in any efforts that are made to bring about so 
desirable a state of things. Even they who have them- 
selves drank deepest into the spirit of the world, will some- 
times lament the want of intenseness on the part of their 
ministers ; but do they not remember that their own worldly- 
mindedness is exerting an influence over their pastor, and 
producing that very state of mind in him which is the sub- 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 257 

ject of their remark and censure? He was perhaps a more 
holy and heavenly man when, young and flexible, he came 
to them from college, and was at first surprised and grieved 
to witness the prevalence of lukewarmness, but after striv- 
ing in vain to produce a better state of things among the 
members of his church, he was gradually drawn down to 
that low level from which he found it impracticable to 
raise them. Thus while we admit there is little hope of a 
revived church which does not rest on the previous revival 
of the ministry, we are tempted almost to argue in a circle, 
and to say there is little hope of a revival of the ministry 
which does not rest on the previous revival of the church. 

Let us then, both ministers and churches, set about in 
good earnest the revival of religion. We act and react 
upon each other. We help or hinder one another. We 
both want more religion ; let the ministry seek it for the 
sake of the people, and the people for the sake of the min- 
istry. If the ministers will not lead the people, let the 
people lead the ministers. If the blessing cannot descend 
from the pulpit to the pew, let it ascend from the pew to 
the pulpit. Let the church of the living God arise, put or 
her robe of righteousness, her garment of salvation, shake 
off the dust from her apparel, and shine forth in the beau- 
ties of holiness. We want a better church to make a bet- 
ter world ; and a better church would most assuredly make 
a better world : and we also want a better ministry to 
make a better church ; but if we cannot have this order 
may we have the other, and find that a better church is 
making a better ministry. If the rain of heaven collect not 
upon the hills to pour down its streams upon the valleys, 
may the dew of the valleys rise to revive and refresh the 
tops of the hills. 

V. We sliould as yxistors of the churches look round our 



258 MEANS TO OBTAIN 

respective flocks, and see ivhat devoted youths of ardent piety 
and competent abilities, we have in our circle, who are likely 
to be useful as ministers of Christ, and should call them out 
to the work, without waiting for the first impulse to come from 
themselves. A radical mistake has been committed through 
our whole denomination, in supposing it is necessary in all 
cases for the desire after the sacred office to rise up first 
of all, and spontaneously, in the breast of the aspirant. In 
consequence of this, many have thrust themselves forward 
who were altogether unfit for the* work ; while many, as 
eminently qualified for it, have been kept back by modesty. 
Does it not seem to be the work of the pastors and the 
churches to call out from among" themselves the most 
gifted and pious of their members for this object? Is not 
this the working out of the principle we have already con- 
sidered, that the church is the conservator of an effective 
ministry ? Are not they the best judges of talent and other 
prerequisites ? Should this matter be left to the inflations 
of self-conceit, the promptings of vanity, or the impulses, 
it may be, of a sincere, but at the same time of an unen- 
lightened zeal ? Nothing can be more erroneous than that 
this call of the church would be an officious intermeddling 
with the work of the Spirit in calling the ministry ; for it 
may surely be conceived to be quite as rational a notion to 
suppose that the Spirit calls a person through the medium 
of the church and its pastor, as to imagine that the com- 
mission from above comes direct to the heart of the indi- 
vidual, especially as the church and the pastor, or at any 
rate the latter is usually applied to, as a judge of the can- 
didate's fitness for the work ; and thus, after all, the power 
and the right of pronouncing a judgment upon the alleged 
call of this Divine Agent, are vested with the pastor and 
the church. To affirm that an individual cannot be sup- 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 259 

posed to have a very great fitness for the office unless his 
love of souls has been strong enough to prompt him to 
desire the work of the ministry, and that he is not likely 
to be very earnest in it, if he be thus sent, instead of his 
going of his own accord, is assuming too much ; for in the 
plan here recommended, it is supposed that the individual 
w T ho attracts the attention of the pastor is one who, in ad- 
dition to true piety and competent abilities, has manifested 
an active zeal in the way of doing good. It is only on such 
a one that his eye would light, or to whom he would ven- 
ture to make the suggestion. In all the official appointments 
recorded in the New Testament, from an apostle down to 
a deacon, the people were requested to look out for suitable 
men, and not to wait till they presented themselves. Let 
us then give our serious attention to this subject, and look 
out for the most pious, the most intelligent, and the most 
ardent of our young men, not forgetting at the same time to 
ascertain their physical qualifications of voice and energy. 
It is not studious youths only that will do for this work, 
mere book-worms w r ho will devour knowledge and make 
no return ; but such as will unite a thirst for knowledge 
with an intense desire to employ every acquisition for sav- 
ing souls. We must be inquisitive after such ; and if 
they are youths in the more respectable classes of society, 
young men that have known something of good society, 
and have acquired the manners and habits of gentlemen, 
that have had something to do with business, and have ac- 
quired such a proper degree of self-confidence as shall 
give them weight and influence of character, all the better. 
Low men, with coarse, vulgar manners, may by the power 
of great talents rise above their origin, and be of value, as 
diamonds uncut and unpolished ; yet how -much would 
the value of these spiritual diamonds be increased by the 



200 MEANS TO OBTAIN 

lapidary's art : but when vulgarity is associated with slen- 
der talents, it is only as flint set in lead. There is nothing 
in gentlemanly manners that deteriorates piety ; though 
much, very much, that adds not only to the gracefulness, 
but to the usefulness, of the ministerial character. The 
graces, when baptized at the font of evangelical piet} r , ar- 
rayed in the robe of righteousness, and wearing the orna- 
ment of a meek and quiet spirit, are useful handmaids to 
the Christian pastor, and procure favor for him in the 
solemn duties of his office. If we may judge from the 
specimens left on record in the Acts of the Apostles, Paul 
united the manners of a courtier with the fidelity of a 
prophet, and threw over the stern courage of a martyr 
the mantle of a gentle courteousness. What could be 
more polished, yet what more faithful, than his address to 
Festus and Agrippa ? and we can imagine that even his 
denunciation against the high priest, who had commanded 
him to be smitten on the mouth, was all the more terrible 
because of the dignified severity with which it was uttered. 
Earnestness, then, is not incompatible with refinement, but 
is rendered more effective by it, and hence the importance 
of our sending our patrician youths to the sacred office. 

Occasionally we may find in our churches, some who 
are possessed of extraordinary talents for speaking and for 
active duty, who are too far advanced in manhood to go 
through a college curriculum, but who, notwithstanding, 
would make admirable preachers, and attain to considerable 
usefulness, as well as respectability. A man of natural 
genius, of strong intelligence, of eminent piety, and of pul- 
pit power, is not to be rejected because he has not passed 
throusfh the schools. Those who remember William 
Thorp, and especially that giant in theological litera- 
ture Andrew Fuller, will not dsny that he who called 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 261 

his apostles, not from the philosophers of Greece, nor 
from the orators of Rome, nor the rabbis of Jerusalem, 
but from the fishermen of Galilee, may sometimes select a 
servant, even in our day, from those classes which have 
been debarred the privilege of a classical or a philosophi- 
cal education. Among the prophets of antiquity was 
Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa. These, however, are the 
exceptions, but not the rule. Even the bishops of our ec- 
clesiastical establishment are lowering their standard of 
qualifications as necessary in all cases for the ministerial 
functions, and are accommodating their system to the wants 
of the people by ordaining men to the sacred office whom 
their predecessors, an age or two back, would have un- 
questionably refused. We must not pretend to more fas- 
tidiousness than they, nor be horror-struck at the idea of 
introducing to the pastorate men who, though they are 
neither scholars nor philosophers, are likely to be power- 
ful and useful preachers of the gospel. A collegiate edu- 
cation must be our general rule, which it may be hoped 
we shall never abandon ; but it is a rule from which we 
must make exceptions in the case of those strong-minded, 
warm-hearted, earnest men, whose tough broad-sword, 
and their strength in wielding it, may do more execution 
than many a weapon whose blade has received the highest 
polish that art can give it, and whose hilt sparkles with 
the richest diamonds. 

VI. This is a subject which demands the close and seri- 
oas attention of the ministry themselves. The whole present 
generation of our preachers, from the oldest to the youngest, 
must give their attention to this matter. We have known 
men of a past age, whose names are dear, and whose mem- 
ory is fragrant, who to the last retained the ardor of their 
8eal, and whose labors, like the flame of the volcano rising 



262 MEAN3 TO OBTAIN 

from beneath the snow-covered surface of the mountain- 
top, were carried on in association with their hoary hairs; 
and some such, though they are very few, still linger 
amongst us. Even they, and we who come next to them, 
and are verging on old age, must all do something more 
and something better than we have done for Christ and 
souls. Our sun is declining and our shadows lengthen on 
the plain, but the day's w 7 ork is not done ; and instead of 
relaxing our diligence, we must w 7 ork the harder because 
the time of working is nearly over. As long as w r e have 
strength to grasp the sickle, or light to bind a sheaf, let us 
work on. Harvest-home will soon be here, and it is time 
enough for enjoyment w T hen that arrives, and we shall meet 
the Master, and our fellow-servants. To us comes with 
solemn emphasis the admonition, " Whatsoever thy hand 
findeth to do, do it with thy might : for there is no work, 
nor device, nor knowledge, in the grave whither thou 
goest." For the sake of our younger brothers let us be 
diligent. They look upon us as patterns, and let us there- 
fore set them an example which shall come to them with 
the correctness of a good model, and the power of an 
ardent inspiration. Let there be no running from our post 
as if we were weary of our service, and panting for the 
otium cum dignitate. Let it be seen as if the earnestness 
of our minds imparted vigor to our bodies, kept off the 
infirmities of our declining years, and enabled us to renew 
our youth like the eagle's. It is a spectacle which the ad- 
mirer of military glory loves to witness, to behold the vet- 
eran soldier, on whose countenance the suns of innumerable 
campaigns, and the swords of his foes, have left their visi- 
ble marks, outstripping in courage, in feats of arms, and in 
swiftness of foot, all the younger warriors that fight at his 
side, and to see him rallying their fainting hearts by the 



AN T EARNEST MINISTRY 263 

strength of his cwn. Veterans in the hosts of Emmanuel, 
see then your duty ! On you it devolves to train the young 
recruits, and form their character : let them feel that they 
are by the side of heroes, and catch the inspiration of your 
heroism. Cast over them your shadow while you live, and 
they will then be anxious to find your mantle when your 
spirit has dropped it in her flight to the skies. Let them 
see you intent upon the conversion of sinners, given up to 
your work of saving souls ; and hear in your conversation 
how much your heart is set upon this work. Show them, 
by the manner in which you are finishing your course, how 
they ought to begin and carry forward theirs. Correct 
their mistakes, elevate their aims, and inflame their zeal. 
Do all you can, by your private intercourse with them, to 
form their character aright for the service of the Lord. 
Talk to them modestly of your own success in the minis- 
try, and how you succeeded in this high and glorious 
achievement. What manner of men ought ye to be, by 
whom the ardor of others will be kindled or extinguished ? 
May God's grace be sufficient for you. 

But of what momentous consequence is it that our 
younger ministers and students should give to this subject 
rts due attention. You have advantages which some who 
have gone before you never enjoyed, and which at times 
make them almost envy your privileges; but if this be all 
you seek, if it be the best and the highest object you as- 
pire to, you have mistaken your way in going to the pul- 
pit, and had better, whatever of literature you may acquire, 
have drudged out life in one of the darkest of its recesses, 
or the humblest of its occupations, than to have entered 
the Christian ministry. Oh, what scenes attract your at- 
tention, and ouo'ht to eno-a^e your energies. There around 
you are immortal souls perishing in their sins, each one of 



264 MEANS TO OBTAIN 

more value than the whole material universe, each capable 
of being saved by your ministrations, or sure to acquire by 
them a deeper guilt and a heavier condemnation — there, in 
sight of your faith, is the Son of God, bleeding upon the 
cross for their redemption — there beneath you is the pit 
of hell, opening wide its mouth to receive them, if they 
die in unbelief — there above you is heaven, throwing back 
its everlasting portals to receive them, if they are saved — 
there before you is the bar of judgment, at which you 
must soon meet them, to account for your ministry in ref- 
erence to them — and there, beyond all, is eternity with 
its ever-rolling ages, which are to be spent by them and 
you in rapture or in woe. Is this true ? Is it fiction or is 
it fact ? If these things are not so, you are found false 
witnesses for Christ, for they are the common topics and 
the first principles of your discourses ; but if they are all 
realities, then with what state of mind and heart should 
they be handled ? Begin your ministry, beloved young 
brothers, with a clear understanding of its nature, and a 
deep impression of its importance. Do you covet useful- 
ness ? Earnestness is essential to it. You cannot do good, 
at least in any extensive degree, without it. Listen to 
those who have gone before you ; their testimony is founded 
both upon experience and observation. All, all will unite 
in this exhortation, "Be in earnest ;" as well the very men 
who have had least, as those who have exhibited most, of 
this quality of character, and mode of action. Without 
this you cannot even be popular, to say nothing of useful- 
ness. The public will hear an earnest minister, and will 
not hear any other. You may call this, if you will, bad 
taste, and wonder they will not listen to your highly intel- 
lectual and philosophical discourses, and be ready in resent- 
ment to withdraw the elaborate preparations they so little 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 265 

value, and retire from the pulpit. No matter whether they 
or you are wrong, this is the fact. He is an unwise trades- 
man, who, because he thinks the public taste is vicious, 
and ought to be corrected, will exhibit in his window, and 
place upon his shelves, no other goods than those the pub- 
lic will not buy. In this case the taste of the public may 
be wrong, and that of the tradesman right ; but in the case 
of preaching, if the people demand an earnest exhibition 
of gospel truth, and the ministry instead of this will give 
them nothing but dull, dry, abstract sermons, it is they 
who are right, and he is wrong; they, better than he does, 
know not only what they want, but what he was appointed 
by God to furnish them. Do not then mistake, and deter- 
mine to try to be useful in some other way than that which 
the God of nature and of grace has determined upon. Do 
not resolve to try the experiment of opening a new road 
to usefulness for yourself ; another way than that which 
apostles, martyrs, and reformers have trod, and which the 
ministers and missionaries of every age and every country 
have found to be the power of God unto salvation, even 
the doctrine of the cross ; a way which you may deem more 
befitting the talents of a scholar, and an age of philosophy. 
You will inevitably go wrong if you do, and close your 
career lamenting your folly, and confessing that your min- 
isterial life has been a lost adventure ; a melancholy con- 
fession, and one that is not unfrequently made. God gives 
to no man in any department of action more than one life, 
and affords to none an opportunity to live through another 
term of existence, and to profit by his own experience ; 
but he gives abundant opportunity to avail ourselves of the 
knowledge gained by trial, as it goes on, and by extensive 
-observation. You have known enough, and seen enough 
already of what will do, and what will not do, to answer 

12 



266 MEANS TO OBTAIII 

the ends of your office, and save souls. You have only 
to look back, and to look around, to find evidence to guide 
you. You cannot mistake your means easily, if you do not 
mistake your object. Settle with yourselves what is the 
latter — that it is to save sinners by leading them to repent 
of sin, to believe on Christ, and to lead a holy life ; and 
then you can scarcely fail to perceive that this never has 
been accomplished, and ordinarily never can be, but by 
beseeching them and praying them, in Christ's stead, to 
be reconciled to God. 

We who are growing gray in the service of Christ, feel 
somewhat anxious about those who are to succeed us. We 
see with gratitude and wonder what God has wrought by 
us ; and we know how, as instruments, we have done this 
thing. We see how souls have been converted, churches 
have risen up, and believers have lived and died in the 
faith, and know full well that it was under the testimony 
of the gospel, plainly but energetically stated. In looking 
back we often feel regret that the activities of the age have 
taken from us the opportunity to make greater attain- 
ments in elegant literature and general knowledge, but 
none that we have made the great theme of Christ cruci- 
fied the subject of our ministry, and the salvation of souls 
the object of our lives. We feel amidst the gathering 
shadows of evening, a calm and sweet satisfaction that in 
this we have made a right choice ; mingled at the same 
time with a profound humiliation that we have not followed 
it with more intensity af devotion. We see many things 
in the review of the past that we would alter, but we 
would make no alteration in these matters; much that we 
could improve, but only in the manner by which we could 
more successfully accomplish this object: and if it were 
permitted us to live over again our existence, or, to speak 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 20 7 

more correctly, to spend another term, and set out afresh, 
it would be our high resolve to get more of what the men 
of science and literature admire, but only to enable us 
to preach with greater power the doctrine of the cross, 
and to be better qualified to seek with more ardor, and 
better hopes of success, the end of our ministry. The love 
of applause, and we have all too much of it, is, we hope, 
dying in our hearts, or at any rate appears to be more and 
more worthless in its object, and the approval of the great 
Master more and more intensely desired. Whether we 
look back upon the past, or consider the complexion of our 
feelings for the present, or look at the prospects and an- 
ticipate the disclosures of the future, we know of no argu- 
ments cogent enough, no language sufficiently expressive, 
by which to enforce upon our younger brethren in the 
ministry, and in reference to the purpose of their lives, the 
important admonition, Be in earnest. 

VII. Considerable care and caution are requisite, much 
more than has been exercised hitherto, in the introduction 
and reception of young men to our colleges. Incompetent 
ministers are the burden, as inconsistent ones have been 
the dishonor, of every section of the church, and the hind- 
rance of the progress of the gospel in the w T orld. In hear- 
ing many of them, one is ready to wonder how it ever 
entered into their hearts to conceive they had been called of 
God to a work for which they seemed to possess scarcely 
a single qualification beyond their piety ; and the wonder 
is doubled to account for it that any minister could recom- 
mend them, or any committee receive them : without in- 
tellect, without heart, and equally -vita out voice, they 
seem sent into the ministry only to keep out others more 
competent for the work. How many have been permitted 
to escape from the pursuits of business, in which they 



268 MEANS TO OBTAIN 

might have done well, to endure the greatest privations, 
and submit to the most humiliating mortifications, in an 
office for the functions of which they were deplorably un- 
fit. How many of them have passed through life in the 
misery of being amidst a discontented people, or in wan- 
dering from place to place without remaining with any 
church long. Such cases have been found in every age ' 
and in every denomination, but they were never so numer- 
ous as they are now. A spirit of fastidiousness has crept 
over the churches, and of unsettledness over their pastors. 
How great then is the responsibility of recommending a 
young man to enter the ministry. It is an act drawing 
after it consequences of a most momentous nature, and 
should never be done without the utmost care and caution. 
It would be well if ministers would call in others to bear 
the burden with them, and to share the responsibility. It 
may in some cases expose a pastor to some risk of giving 
offence, if in the exercise of his fidelity he should discourage 
the aspirations of an unsuitable candidate ; an evil from 
which he would be sheltered, at least in part, by referring 
the case to the consideration of two or three of the breth- 
ren in the vicinity. It is not, however, the pastor only who 
should be cautioned about recommending candidates, but 
the committees of our colleges should be no less careful 
about receiving them. It is extremely difficult by a first 
examination, or even by a probationary term, to judge of 
eligibility and fitness : as great excellence in some cases 
lies hidden under a very uncouth and unpromising exterior, 
and in others is very slow to develop itself ; while, on the 
contrary, in a different class, a showy exterior, over a shal- 
low substratum, is so deceptive, that not\>nly months, but 
even years must roll on, before the necessary qualifications 
can be determined upon. A false delicacy, however, has 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 200 

sometimes led all our committees to retain young men in 
the college of whose unfitness there remained no question, 
rather than put them and their friends to the pain of recom- 
mending them to discontinue their studies and return to 
trade. It should be recollected, that to carry on the edu- 
cation of those of whom there is no rational probability 
that they will ever attain to usefulness of any kind, either 
as authors, tutors, or preachers, is on the part of the com- 
mittee a betrayal of their trust, and a malversation of the 
funds intrusted to their care. Let there be then a far 
greater degree of care and discrimination exercised in the 
initiative by our pastors than there has been : ten earnest 
men are Letter, and will do more for us, than a hundred 
incompetent ones. It would be better that many of the 
churches should remain longer without a pastor, than gain 
an unsuitable one : just as it is a far more endurable evil 
for a man who wishes for connubial felicity to endure the 
privations of celibacy any length of time, than to hurry 
from those into the miseries of an unhappy marriage. We 
must be more careful in the selection, the reception, and 
the retention of our students, than we have been. Since 
it is so difficult to find an egress for those who are once 
in, it is highly incumbent upon us to watch with greater 
vigilance the door of entrance. 

VIII. There is no class of men to whom we can look so 
naturally or with so much entreaty for their aid in furnish- 
ing us with devoted ministers, as our tutors. If the college 
be the mould in which the preacher and pastor are cast, 
the tutor is the man who shapes the mould, and pours 
into it the metal. How much then depends upon these 
beloved and honored brethren. What a trust is reposed 
with them, how solemn, how awful, how responsible ! If 
it be a momentous thing for a pastor to have the care of 
a single church, how much more so, for a tutor to have 



270 MEA.XS TO OBTAIN 

the care of twenty or thirty youthful minds, each of which 
is looking forward to the pastorate ; and to have these 
replaced by others eve>y five years ! Such an occupation 
is enough to make the stoutest heart to tremble under an 
oppressive sense of its responsibilities. The strength of 
our churches lies in our ministry ; of our ministry in our 
colleges ; and of our colleges in our tutors. There is noth- 
ing about which we ought to be more anxious than about 
this part of our system. Happily, to whatever department 
of ministerial education we look, whether to the philologi- 
cal, mathematical, or philosophical ; whether to hermeneu- 
tical or dogmatical theology, we find in our various 
academic institutions, professors of whom we need not be, 
and are not ashamed. If we need improvement anywhere, 
it is in the homiletical and pastoral. We can scarcely 
wonder that, in such an age as this, our professors should 
be anxious to push forward their alumni as far as possible 
into the regions of literature and science ; or that they 
should feel a solicitude, now that the London University 
gives an opportunity to Nonconformists for obtaining 
academic degrees and honors, to give full proof of their 
official assiduity in the distinctions won by their students 
in these laudable contests for scholastic fame ; but at the 
same time it is well for them to remember that while these 
things are not neglected, one popular, earnest, and suc- 
cessful preacher will bring more real credit to their college, 
and give it more favor with the public, than a dozen 
Bachelors of Arts, and half-a-dozen Masters to boot. The 
occasional exhibition, and it can be but occasional, of the 
titular letters affixed to a man's name, will not often ex- 
cite the inquiry, " Where was he educated ?" but the con- 
stant exhibition and effect of his preaching powers will be 
a public and permanent recommendation of the institution 
where such a character was formed. It is true that natural 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 271 

preaching talents will grow in almost any soil, and undei 
almost any culture ; but it may still be carried to a higher 
degree of perfection in one place, and by one hand, than 
another. There is also such a thing as colleges gaining 
an identifying character, one for turning out better scholars, 
a second for giving more philosophy, and a third for carry- 
ing on a better theological training- • but that in the long 
run will be the most useful, and deservedly the most popu- 
lar, which succeeds in sending forth the greatest number 
of earnest and successful preachers. 

All earnestness has a tinge of enthusiasm about it, and 
as no man can kindle enthusiasm in the soul of another 
who has none of this mental fire in himself, our tutors 
should have some fire, though with judgment enough to 
keep it in its proper place, and to do its proper work : and 
however enthusiastic they may be for classical, scientific, 
and philosophical studies, let them concentrate their ener- 
gies, their aims, and their hopes in the formation of the 
popular, powerful, and useful preacher. They who know 
how much there is to do with many young men that enter 
our seats of learning, and how much of necessity the time 
and attention must be divided among the various objects 
of study, will confess that it is no easy matter to give that 
prominence to homiletics which their supreme importance 
demands. But, notwithstanding this, opportunities will 
Ijontinually present themselves to an anxious and observant 
professor for inculcating upon his students that all he is 
teaching them will be useless, if they do not make it sub- 
servient to their great business in preaching the gospel 
and converting sinners. But it is of especial importance 
that our tutors should be much upon the alert when the 
students begin to preach, that these young men in their first 
pulpit labors should select the true subject of all preaching, 
pursue it by the right course, and seek it with due vigor. 



272 MEANS TO OBTAIN 

What a student is in his first essays at pulpit effect, that 
he is likely to be through life ; and if there be no earnest- 
ness then, there is likely to be little afterwards. It happens 
that as all excellencies rarely eombine in one man, many 
of our professors, though so highly gifted as regards tal- 
ent and acquirement, are not all of them distinguished as 
preachers, and therefore can present in themselves no living 
models of what pulpit power, as to manner, really is. 
Still, they who cannot illustrate it by example, can teach 
it by precept. May they see the importance of the subject, 
and la-bor to the utmost to inculcate it upon the youth 
that are looking up to them for instruction, and labor to 
the utmost to kindle in their breast the ardor of a pulpit 
enthusiasm ! 

We can easily imagine with what delight they must 
sometimes witness the advance in extensive and accurate 
scholarship, in analytical power, in logical acuteness, in 
metaphysical subtlety ; and in some rare cases may felicitate 
themselves on such results of their labor, though they can 
foresee they will never be associated with pulpit efficiency 
— but, as a general rule, nothing should gratify, much less 
satisfy them, with reference to their students, short of 
adaptation for popular effect. The demand preferred by 
our country upon the military schools is, " Give us sol- 
diers ;" upon our medical colleges, " Give us skilful sur- 
geons and physicians ;" upon our Inns of Court, " Give us 
lawyers. " The cry sent up to our colleges is, " Give us 
powerful preachers, devoted pastors," — nor wall it do to 
meet this demand, any more than it would the others, by 
replying, " We will send you Bachelors and Masters of 
Arts." Much less w T ill it do to send men who w r ill feed 
the churches with the dry and sapless verbal exegesis of 
German theology, instead of the sweet and succulent ex- 
positions of our Scotts, our Henrys, our Wardlaws, and 



AN EARNEST MINISTRY. 2*73 

our Barneses. Ministers may study the profoundest criti- 
cisms for their own improvement, and carry on a course of 
exegetic exposition in the pulpit; but it must be of a 
character that shall combine impression with instruction; 
and let our tutors aim to train preachers, who shall make 
their sermons expository, their expositions sermonic, and 
both instinct with life, and essentially popular. Let them 
with the men they send into our churches, give us as much 
as they can of everything which can polish the taste, inform 
or even adorn the intellect, and give weight and influence 
to the character in general society — the more of all this the 
better; but let them never forget that what is always 
wanted for the momentous subject of religion, and what is 
especially wanted in these times of intense earnestness, is a 
race of ministers as earnest as the times in which they live. 
May God help them to train such ministers for us ! 

IX. If it be the duty of the churches to call out a min- 
istry, it must of coarse be no less their duty to provide the 
means for the education of those who compose it. Among 
all the objects of Christian benevolence, there is not one 
which has a prior or a stronger claim than our collegiate 
institutions, and yet it is too true that they are the last 
whose demands are properly regarded. Among Protestant 
Dissenters especially, the main pivot of their whole system 
is their ministry ; upon this everything, under God, must 
turn. As this is strong, everything else amongst us will 
be strong ; and as this is weak, everything else will be 
weak. The springs which supply the reservoirs of our 
evangelizing societies, both at home and abroad, are to be 
traced back to our colleges ; and yet, the churches do not 
yet seem, if we may judge from their conduct, to be duly 
aware of this fact. They are not however to be consid- 
ered as eleemosynary institutions, where a race of literary 
paupers are sustained by the aims of the affluent ; for it is 



274 MEANS TO OBTAIN" 

becoming increasingly the practice for our students to pdj 
for their own board ; but beyond this, we have the invalu- 
able services of our professors to reward, and many other 
expenses to defray. This must be borne by the churches, 
in all cases where there is no vested property, or where it 
is not adequate to the support of the institution. How can 
property be better applied ? What expenditure produces 
a quicker or more abundant return ? A good education for 
our ministry is cheaply obtained at any price ; and every 
shilling we expend in this way tells at once, and before our 
eyes, upon the object for which it is intended. And yet, 
strange to say, there is no object for which we find it more 
difficult to obtain a regular and adequate supply of means. 
Foreign and home missions have an annual collection from 
almost every church in our denomination, and yet how few 
are there of these churches who grant an annual collection 
for any college, and what multitudes who never grant a 
collection at all ! The platform is the stage of modern 
activity, but our colleges can make no exhibition there ; we 
can employ no succession of orators to advocate our cause 
by speeches in support of resolutions ; can exhibit no for- 
eigners ; can produce no excitement by tales of horror, of 
pathos, or of adventure ; yet where would be the platform, 
but for the pulpit, and what is the pulpit without the col- 
lege ? We ought not, it is true, to do less for our other 
organizations, but we ought to do far more for our educa- 
tional system. We must bestir ourselves, and not allow 
this, on which everything depends, to fall into the rear 
and to pass into the shadow of one or twc deservedly pop- 
ular societies. If a larger part of the zeal manifested in 
arguing for our voluntary principle were employed in a 
more liberal support of our denominational institutions, 
they would be in a far better state than they now are. 
With all our ardor in the cause of Nonconformity, it is 



AN EARNEST MINISIRY. 275 

easier to raise large funds for other objects of benevolence 
than for this. The London Missionary Society, which is 
chiefly supported by the Congregational body, has an in- 
come of nearly eighty thousand pounds a year, while that 
same body does not raise, by voluntary contributions, more, 
perhaps, than eight or nine thousand for our seats of learn- 
ing ; and even this is not so economically expended as it 
might be by a consolidation of our colleges. It is high 
time this whole system were looked into. 

It is, however, somewhat cheering to know that this 
subject is beginning to be understood by our churches, and 
a more just appreciation to be made by the intelligence of 
the age of the value of an educated ministry ; and as a 
natural consequence there is springing up a more general 
disposition to support the expense which it incurs. Many 
instances have occurred of late of the owners of property 
apportioning a large share of it either in the way of found- 
ing colleges or establishing scholarships for the education 
of young men for the ministry. An individual who founds 
one of these scholarships may, if he give his property at 
at the age of thirty-five, and should live to be seventy, have 
six or seven ministers preaching the gospel at the same 
time, who were educated by his means ; and when he has 
reached his heavenly honK, may welcome to glory through 
a long succession of ages the souls that were saved by the 
labors of those ministers for whose education he had set 
apart his property. How laudable and how noble an ob- 
ject of honorable ambition does such a proposal present to 
those who have at once the wish and the means to do good. 
Let the churches collectively, and their wealthy members 
individually, well consider, then, the obligation, which is laid 
upon them to provide all that may be necessary to insure 
the education of a ministry adapted to the circumstances 
of this extraordinary age. 



CHAPTER XI. 

ON Zflt? NECESSITY OF DIVINE INFLUENCE FOR AN 
EFFICIENT MINISTRY. 

This work would be essentially defective in the estima- 
tion both of its author and its readers, if, after so much has 
been advanced about instrumentality, nothing were to be 
said about the agency which is necessary to render it effect- 
ual for the accomplishment of its object. In all Divine 
operations, whether in the world of nature or of grace, 
God employs a chain of dependent means for the working 
out of his purposes and plans ; but though dependent, 
they are appropriate. In acknowledging, as we must do, 
the adaptation of these means to the production of the 
intended result, we do homage to his wisdom ; while in 
confessing their dependence for efficiency upon his blessing, 
we do no less homage to his power and grace. There is 
no analogy which we can borrow from the world of nature 
that can satisfactorily illustrate the operation of Divine 
grace on the human mind. We know very well that 
second causes in the material universe depend for their 
efficiency upon Divine influence ; but it is an influence of 
a totally different kind, and exerted altogether in a differ- 
ent manner from that of which we now write ; and we are 
very little aided in :>ur perceptions of the nature of the 



THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE INFLUENCE. 277 

Sph it's operation upon the human mind, by anything we 
observe in the world of vegetable or animal life. There 
are two aspects in which man is to be viewed in relation to 
the means employed for his salvation, as both a rational 
and a sinful creature ; or as a rational creature whose rea- 
son is under the dominion of sin : consequently, whatever 
method be adopted for his salvation, he must be dealt with 
in both these views of his condition. His fallen state as a 
sinner has not bereft him of his reason, will, and responsi- 
bility ; but his reason and will alone will never lift him out 
of his condition as a fallen sinner. He cannot be dealt 
with otherwise than he is, and as a rational creature he 
must be treated as such, and not as a brute or a block. 
His intellect must be appealed to by argument, and hi3 
heart by motives. Now it will be seen that in the means 
of grace, and especially in preaching, there is a provision 
for all this. Here is truth to be presented to the intellect, 
truth which represents the whole state of the case between 
God and the sinner, the nature and obligations of tha 
moral law, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the weight of the 
tremendous penalty of the violated precept, the wonderful 
love of God in the provision he has made for the salvation 
of the sinner, with the eternal results of misery or bliss 
which follow upon faith and unbelief. In all this, there is 
something in its own nature adapted to engage the atten- 
tion and to interest the heart of the sinner. It is not only 
the truth, but just the truth -that suits his condition. 
In addition to this, there is in preaching the adaptation of 
the manner as well as the matter to his circumstances, 
the tendency of the living voice, and ministerial solicitude, 
and earnest elocution, to engage the intellect and impress 
the heart. It will follow, of course, that earnestness is a 
part of this well-adapted system of means, and the more 



2*78 THE NECESSITY OF 

earnest a man is, the more likely, so far as means go, is 
he to do good ; for if it be the matter which God blesses 
to change the heart, it is also the manner which he blesses 
to fix the attention preparatory to this change : there is as 
obvious an adaptation in the latter as in the former. How 
comes it to pass that there is greater efficiency usually at- 
tendant upon hearing the word, than there is upon reading 
it ? Just because there is a greater adaptation to fix at- 
tention and to impress the heart ; and by the same rule 
we argue there is more adaptation to do this in one man's 
manner, than in that of another. Hence we see that those 
preachers are the most successful, whom, independently of 
a Divine power, we might expect to be so. This does not 
disprove the necessity of a Divine influence, but only 
shows what order of instrumentality it is that the Divine 
Spirit usually employs, and consequently what instrumen- 
tality we should select. As God does not usually bless 
ignorance, or dullness, or obscurity, or feebleness, we should 
avoid these ; and to look for great results from them, is 
to expect not only what God has not promised, but what 
he very rarely bestows without having promised it. Thus 
God deals with us as rational creatures, by presenting to 
us that truth, and requiring us to understand and believe 
it, the reception of which into the heart changes the whole 
character and conduct. 

But then there is in the heart of man, not only an in- 
difference, but an opposition to this truth ; both a disrelish 
for, and a dislike to it. " The carnal mind is enmity against 
God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed 
can be." The heart so blinds the judgment, that " the nat- 
ural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God, 
neither indeed can he know them, because they are spir- 
itually discerned." Therefore, however the attention may 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 279 

be gained by the manner, and gained it must be in order to 
conversion, yet the heart is still opposed to the truth; 
hence the need of the Spirit's influence to subdue this re- 
sistance of the heart to truth itself. Now here it will be 
perceived is the concurrence of the truth and the Spirit in 
conversion — conversion is the sinner being brought to 
know and love the objects presented in the truth — 
therefore the truth must be presented to the intellect in 
order that it might be thus known and loved ; but then it 
never will be so loved, however theoretically understood, 
till the Spirit takes away the disrelish for it which is in 
the heart. ^YitllOut the truth, there is nothing to engage 
the attention and employ the intellect of man, as a rational 
being ; without the Spirit, there is no inclination of the 
heart, when the truth is so presented. If a certain quality 
of an object be the ground of dislike to it, an increasing 
knowledge of the object and of this quality cannot in the 
nature of things subdue our liostility^ ; the taste must be 
changed ere the object can be relished. It is precisely 
thus with the sinner and the truth ; he dislikes the gospel 
for its holiness, and no increase of light will vanquish en- 
mity. Consequently, whatever be the earnestness of the 
preacher's manner, or whatever be the clearness of his 
matter, no saving result will follow, unless the Spirit give 
his blessing. Yet preaching is as necessary as if ail were 
done by this alone, without the Spirit, because it is by this 
order of means that the Spirit works in the conversion of 
sinners. And since it is by appropriate means that he 
accomplishes his purposes, there is nothing in this doctrine 
to discourage exertion. There are means which carry in 
themselves the rational hope, if not promise, of success. 
God will not accept the lame for sacrifice, nor send down 
the signs of hrs approval on the service which involves no 



280 THE NECESSITY OF 

real effort of heart or mind in his cause. No : the influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit comes not as a bounty upon indo- 
lence, but as a stimulus to exertion. Its office is not to 
give the human faculties a license to slumber, but to sup- 
ply them with motives to watchfulness. Its descent upon 
the church is not as the creeping torpor which betokens 
disease, but as an element of activity bespeaking moral and 
spiritual health. This blessed influence is unquestionably 
sovereign in the dispensation of it. God giveth it in such 
measures, on such occasions, and to such instruments, as 
it seemeth good unto him. He that directeth the course of 
the clouds, and causeth them to drop their treasures where 
and when he pleaseth, makes the dew of his grace, and 
the rain of his Spirit, to fall according to the counsel of 
his own will. There is no such necessary connection be- 
tween the exhibition of the truth and the conversion of the 
soul as there is between the application of fire and the 
combustion of inflammable matter. The apostle says, 
" Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by 
whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man ? I 
have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. 
So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he 
that watereth • but God that giveth the increase." 1 Cor. 
iii. 5, 7. One should think it impossible to mistake the 
meaning of this language, or to doubt whether special 
Divine influence be necessary for the conversion of the 
soul, or whether the communication of it be a prerogative 
of Divine sovereignty. 

Still* there is every ground to expect the influence we 
need. It is our privilege to live under the dispensation of 
the Spirit, as well as under that of the Messiah. The 
former of these follows the latter : or perhaps, more cor- 
rectly speaking, they are identical ; the covenant estab- 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 281 

lished in Christ's blood is the economy of the Spirit. 
The ministry of reconciliation is the ministry of the Spirit. 
We do not mean to assert that this Divine influence is con- 
fined to the Christian economy, for since the beginning of 
time hath no soul been converted or sanctified but by this 
heavenly power ; but the communications before the com- 
ing of Christ were limited, partial, and scanty, compared 
with what they have been since : they constituted not the 
shower, but only the drops which precede it. Hence the 
language of the evangelist, " This spake ye of the Spirit, 
which they that believe on him should receive : for the 
Holy Ghost was not yet given ; because that Jesus was not 
yet glorified." John vii. 39. This idea, that we are under 
the Spirit's economy, should enlarge our expectation of the 
richest communication of this invaluable and essential 
blessing. The view we have given of Divine sovereignty 
is not intended, nor, when lightly understood, is it even 
calculated, to discourage hope, but simply to teach depend- 
ence. While God reserves to himself the right of be- 
stowment, and acts upon his own rules of communication, 
he warrants and invites the most expansive requests, and 
the largest anticipations. Since he has promised to give 
the boon in answer to the prayer of faith, it would seem 
to be our own fault that we have it not in more abounding 
measure. The very recollection of our privilege, as placed 
under such an economy, might seem to be enough to call 
forth our prayers, and to awaken our expectations. In- 
stead of being surprised that we receive so much of this 
Divine power on our ministry at any time, even the most 
successful periods of our history, we should be surprised 
that we receive so little, and inquire after the cause of ob- 
struction. In a country like Egypt, w T here rain seldom 
falls, the shcv 21* is the exception, and a dry atmosphere 



282 THE NECESSITY OF 

the general rule ; but in our variable climate, the long 
drought is the rarity, and the frequent shower is the com- 
mon occurrence. The husbandman ploughs and sows in 
this land, with his expectant eyes upon the heavens, and 
feels disappointed if the fertilizing rain is withheld. So 
should it be with us, in reference to the shower of God's 
grace. We are not under the dry and arid atmosphere of 
the Levitical economy, but we enjoy the privilege of the 
cloud- dropping, rain- falling dispensation of the Spirit ; and 
with us the question should be, Why have we not more of 
this Divine influence ? what has provoked the Lord to 
withhold from us the genial influences of his grace ? In- 
stead of being at any time astonished that our ministry is 
so much blessed, we should inquire why it is not always 
so. When we consider what is said, that God " willeth 
not the death of a sinner, but would rather that he should 
repent and turn from his wickedness and live ;" when we 
recollect what he has done for the salvation of sinners; 
"when we add to this, that the gospel is his own truth, and 
preaching his own institution ; we are sometimes ready to 
wonder that he does not pour out that influence which is 
necessary to give effect to the purposes of his own benevo- 
lence, and almost to inquire, " What does the Lord now 
wait for ?" In answer to this it might be replied, "He 
waits for the earnest labors of his ministers, the faith of his 
church, and the believing prayers of both." 

It is quite perceptible that the necessity of Divine influ- 
ence is rather a dogma of faith than a principle of prac- 
tice, both with ministers and their flocks. Did the peopl-e 
really believe it, were it matter of inwrought conviction, 
and were there the least seriousness of spirit in their re- 
ligion, how much less dependence would there be upon 
men, h«j w much less said about talent, how much less 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 283 

homage paid to genius and eloquence, and how much 
more looking up to God by intense and persevering sup- 
plication. Recollecting that God works by means, and by 
means adapted to promote the end, there would be no 
danger of sinking into an enthusiastic and irrational neglect 
of these, while on the contrary there would be more con- 
stant and serious attendance upon them. The knowledge 
that preaching, and especially earnest preaching, is the 
Spirit's instrumentality, would lead men to seek that very 
instrumentality, in order that they might have the blessing. 
How highly would it exalt the minister to consider him as 
the Spirit's instrument, and how important would it make 
the sermon to view it as God's means to bless the soul. 
It is immeasurably to sink both, to view them apart from 
God's agency ; it is to cease to view the preacher as an 
ambassador for Christ, and instead of this, to listen to him 
only as the lecturer on religion. With what sacred awe 
would he be heard, and with what fervent prayer, too, by 
those who viewed him as the appointed medium of that 
influence, which, if it be received, would illuminate, renew, 
and sanctify the soul ? 

But if it be incumbent on the people to remember the 
dependence of means upon the Divine blessing, how much 
more is it the duty of ministers themselves. It is an 
article of our creed, it is often the subject of our sermons, 
and it is acknowledged in our prayers ; but after all, is 
our conviction of dependence upon the Spirit so deep, so 
practical, and so constant, as to prevent us from attempt- 
ing anything in our own strength, and to impel us to be 
strong only in the Lord, and in the power of his might ? 
Do we conduct the pursuits of the study, as well as regu- 
late the prayers of the clos3t, by this conviction ? Do we 
with childlike simplicity, ar.d in the very spirit we inculcate 



284 THE NECESSITY OF 

upon our hearers in reference to their own personal salva- 
tion, habitually give ourselves up to the guidance and 
blessing of this Divine agent ? Do we look up for 
wisdom to guide us in the selection of our texts and 
the composition of our sermons? Do the eye and the 
heart go up to heaven, as we think and write for the 
people ? Do we go to our pulpit in a praying frame, as 
well as in a preaching frame — praying even while we 
preach, for our people as well as for ourselves ? Do we 
thus clothe ourselves with Omnipotence, and go forth as 
with the Lord ever before us. Do we recollect that from 
all that crowd of immortal souls before us, we shall gather 
nothing but human praise or censure, except the Lord be 
with us; that not one dark mind will be illumined, not 
one hard heart softened, not one inquiring soul directed, 
not one wounded spirit healed, not one uneasy conscience 
appeased, unless God the Spirit do it? Do we really 
want to accomplish these objects, or merely to deliver a 
sermon that shall please the people, and gratify our own 
vanity ? If the former, how entire, how confident, how 
believing, should be our sense of dependence upon some- 
thing far higher than the best and most appropriate instru- 
mentality ! Such a feeling of dependence would cramp 
none of the energies of our soul, would stunt none of our 
powers, quench none of our fire, repress none of our in- 
tensity of manner. So far from this, we should derive 
from it unspeakable advantage in addressing our hearers ; 
a seriousness, tenderness, and majesty would pervade our 
discourses, beyond what the greatest unassisted talent 
could command ; a something superhuman would rest upon 
us, a Divine glory would irradiate us, and we should speak 
in power and demonstration of the Spirit. " Possessed 
of this celestial unction, we should be under no temptation 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 285 

to neglect a plain gospel, in quest of amusing speculations 
and unpiofitable novelties ; the most ordinary topics would 
open themselves with a freshness and interest, as though 
we had never considered them before ; and the things of 
the Spirit would display their inexhaustible variety and 
depth. We shall pierce the invisible world, we shall look, 
so to speak, into eternity, and present the very essence of 
religion, while too many preachers, for want of spiritual 
discernment, rest satisfied with the surface and the shell. 
We shall not allow ourselves to throw one grain of incense 
on the altar of vanity, and shall forget ourselves so com- 
pletely as to convince our hearers we do so ; and, dis- 
placing everything else from the attention, leave nothing 
to be felt or thought of but the majesty of truth and the 
realities of eternity."* The preacher who cherishes such a 
frame of mind will appear with a radiance not less dazzling 
perhaps than that of genins, but far more sacred, heavenly, 
and divine ; and when carried to his highest pitch of ear- 
nestness and dependence, seems almost to reach that 
sublime symbol of the Apocalypse, of the angel standing 
in the sun. 

" But this kind goeth not forth but by fasting and prayer." 
A deep, practical conviction of the need of the Spirit, would 
make us men of prayer, would send us much to our closets, 
and keep us there. Here perhaps is the cause why we 
have not more success in our ministry, and are not more fre- 
quently and more heartily gladdened by the conversion of 
souls to God : we seek to be men of the pulpit merely, and 
are not sufficiently men of the closet. It is a mystery in 
God's moral government that he should make the commu- 



* Mr. Hall on the Discouragements and Support of the Christian 
Ministry. 



286 THE NECESSITY OF 

nication of his grace for the salvation of sinners dependent 
in any degree upon the prayers of others : yet he does so, 
and we know it : and yet knowing it, how little have we 
been affected by it and stirred up to prayer on this ac- 
count. We have uttered our complaints of the fruitlessness 
of our ministry long enough before one another ; but, as 
the Bishop of Calcutta says in his introduction to the 
" Reformed Pastor/' " One day spent in fasting and prayer 
to God is worth a thousand days of complaint and lamenta- 
tion before men." The author of this work, can assure his 
brethren that it is not with any disposition to accuse them, 
and exalt or exculpate himself, that he writes thus. He 
takes his full share of blame in the deficiency of a spirit of 
fervent prayer, and his full share of humiliation too, on 
that account. The activities of the age, which require us 
to be so much in public, may furnish some mitigation of 
blame, if not an excuse, for the too little time spent in the 
fervor of private prayer. Devotion is damped by business. 
Still, even with this palliation, we are verily guilty, for we 
do not pray as if we believed we were sent to save souls 
from death and could not be successful in a single instance 
without the grace of God. Who of us can read the dia- 
ries of such men as Doddridge, and Brainerd, and Pays ox, 
and Martyn, and very many others, and not stand re- 
proved for our lamentable deficiency in the exercise of 
prayer ? Perhaps in modern times there was never so much 
of social prayer, and never less of private. We introduce 
all our business transactions with prayer, and too often in a 
kind of business spirit, and with a sad want of sincerity, 
seriousness, and deep devotion ; so that the very frequency 
and want of reverence with which we engage in these ex- 
ercises of devotion, tend to diminish the spirit of prayer. 
Nothing is more to be drsaded than a depression of the 



DIVIl'E INFLUENCE. 287 

spirit of devotion, and nothing more intensely to be desired, 
than its elevation. A praying ministry must be an earnest 
one, and an earnest ministry a praying one. Let us then 
feel ourselves called upon by all the circumstances of the 
times, to abound more and more in fervent supplications. 
Let us, if we can in no other way command more time for 
prayer, take it from study or from sleep. We have neither 
right nor reason to expect the Spirit, if we do not ask for 
his gracious influence, and without him we can do nothing. 
Let us take care lest a bustling activity, and the endless 
multiplication of societies, should supplant, instead of call* 
ing forth, as they ought to do, a feeling of intense devo- 
tion. We never more needed prayer, we were never in 
more danger of neglecting it. There is plausibility in the 
excuse that we had better abridge the time of praying 
than the time of acting. But it w^ill be found in the end 
that doings carried on at the sacrifice of prayer, will end in 
confusion and vanity. A public spirit, even in the cause 
of religion, however prevalent or energetic, if it be not 
maintained in a feeling of dependence upon God, will be 
regarded by him as the image of jealousy in the temple, 
which maketh jealous. Our sermons are the power of meuy 
or perhaps we might say, their weakness ; but our prayers 
are in a modified sense the power of God. Let us not 
slacken in preaching, but let us quicken in devotion ; let 
us not quench a ray of intellect, but let us add to it the 
warmth of devotion ; let us labor as if the salvation of souls 
depended upon our own unaided energies, and then let us 
feel as did the apostle wnen he said, M though I be noth- 
ing.'' The eternal destinies of our hearers hang not only 
upon our sermons, but upon our prayers ; we carry out 
the purposes of our mission, not only in the pulpit, but in 
the closet ; and may never expect to be sucee ssful minis- 



288 THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE INFLUENCE. 

ters of the lSTew Covenant, but by this two-fold importu- 
nity of iirst beseeching sinners to be reconciled to God, and 
then beseeching God to pour out his Spirit upon them : 
thus we honor his wisdom in the use of the means he has 
appointed, and then his power by confessing our depend- 
ence upon his grace. 

Baxter concludes his " Reformed Pastor/' with an ex- 
pression of his confidence in the usefulness of the book he 
had written, which it would be unwarrantable and ridiculous 
vanity in me to adopt in reference to mine, at least in any 
other way than that of hope and prayer, and in this spirit 
I ^borrow the language of that great and holy man, and 
say, " I have now, brethren, done with my advice, and 
leave you to the practice. Though the proud receive it 
with scorn, and the selfish and slothful with distaste, or 
even with indignation, I doubt not but God will use it, in 
despite of the opposition of sin and Satan, to the awaken- 
ing of many of his servants to their duty, and to the promo- 
tion of a work of right reformation ; and that his blessing 
will accompany the present undertaking lor the saving of 
many souls, the peace of you that understand and perform 
it, the excitinof of his servants throughout the nation to 
second you, and the increase of the purity and unity of his 
churches. Amei.. ,r 



THE END. 



